


the ones we love

by wanderloved



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Dual POV, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 45,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4692803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderloved/pseuds/wanderloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bass and Miles are recruited by Blanchard to take out the war clans threatening Texas. Charlie decides that she's not going to let the boys have all the fun.</p><p>Takes place after season two, after the Patriot problem has been solved. No Nanos/Bradbury because they're dumb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how long this will be or how often it'll be updated, because I'm really horrible with keeping up with multi-chapter things, but hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this one. Thanks for reading!

She is beneath him, writhing under his touch. He explores her body with his tongue, wanting to taste everything she has to offer. Her eyes are squeezed tight and he is so enthralled; he can’t look away. She is the most beautiful thing he’s ever witnessed, and he’s done this many times with many people, but never quite like this. She reaches for him blindly and he grasps her wrists, pushing them up over her head, trapping her in place. She lets out a tiny sound of impassioned distress before yielding to him. He holds her, working back up her body to breathe heavily into the hair gathered around her neck.

In his mind, she is his, but in reality she never can be. Bass sighs, finishing himself on the long-stained sheets dejectedly. He is alone in this bedroom, just him and his hand and his overactive imagination. She wouldn’t want him, even if she knew how badly he wanted her. Besides, there are too many factors working against them – his son, his brother, her mother, their sordid shared history. His guilt barely allows him to speak to her. The things he wants to do to her are impossible, and he tells himself that he’ll stop thinking about her. Tomorrow.

He gets dressed quickly and paces downstairs to fix himself some breakfast. He should have left Willoughby a long time ago, but he can’t bring himself to do so. Instead, he lives in this too-large house all by himself, stuck with only his thoughts for company. Now that Miles doesn’t need his help they barely speak, and though Connor had come crawling back with his tail between his legs, Bass hasn’t yet found it in himself to forgive his son fully. 

He is kept occupied for the first few months, hunting down the remaining Patriots with the rest of Blanchard’s men. But by the end of the summer, his job as Patriot slayer is coming to an end, and he no longer knows what to do with himself. Texas is enduring a tentative peace with California, and Bass’s skills just don’t seem needed any more. He wants to help, but he’s never been good at taking orders. He preferred to be the one giving them.

So he has stayed in Willoughby, always just to the side of the Matheson family: not quite apart, but not a member either. He cares about them, even Rachel to a certain degree, though he knows they will never see eye to eye, and he does his best to protect them the best that he can. And if staying in Willoughby is what he has to do to see Charlie Matheson, it’s worth it. 

He boils water for oatmeal, settling in his spacious though run-down kitchen with a worn copy of _Jurassic Park_. His collection of books in Philly was extensive, but they were all destroyed when the bombs dropped and he has slowly been accumulating what books he comes across over his travels. Most of the books he’s found have been moldy and unreadable, but he has managed to pull together a small library of books in decent condition. Finding _Jurassic Park_ was something of a highlight – it had been one of his favourite books as a teenager who didn’t much care for reading.

He reads through a leisurely breakfast before he is interrupted by a knock at the door. When he opens it, standing on his porch is Frank Blanchard himself, flanked by two Texas Rangers wielding impressive artillery. Blanchard’s entourage is less intimidating than Bass’s once was, but he supposes that might be a good thing. Much as he wishes he had something worthwhile to spend his time on, he has lost his fantasy of rebuilding the Republic.

The realization hit him upon Connor’s betrayal: he’d never wanted the Republic to begin with, and without a son worthy of his legacy, the dream no longer appealed to him. Though he would never be content with a quiet life, President Monroe was dead. He would never be coming back, Bass was certain.

“Good morning,” Bass flinches at Blanchard’s booming voice, “Lose your razor with your city?”

Bass runs his hand through his growing beard. His grooming habits have become rather more lax since Philly blew up. It fell quite a few rungs down on his list of priorities, and never picked back up.

“You’re not looking too great yourself,” he replies, nodding at Blanchard’s wispy white hair and his patchy beard. Blanchard lets out a hearty laugh and Bass notes that the Texas general is much more of a morning person than he is. “What’re you doing here?”

“Straight to the point. I like that. You might invite me in, though,” Blanchard doesn’t wait for the invitation before pushing into Bass’s home and heading toward the scantly furnished living room, his men following behind. Bass reluctantly joins them, wanting to get this impromptu meeting over with as quickly as possible. There are a lot of men he likes less, but he’s never been particularly fond of Frank Blanchard.

“Again, what are you doing here, Frank?” Bass asks, standing near the doorway while Blanchard slouches onto the couch far too comfortably.

“A man can’t just come by to visit an old friend?”

“Didn’t know we were friends.”

“So maybe this isn’t a social call. I have a job that needs doing, and I think you’re the best person to do it.”

“And why would I be interested in whatever this job is?”

“First, it gets you out of this backwater town and back into the action, and second, I think you’d get a kick out of it. It involves a lot of killing, and your favourite person in the whole damn world.” Charlie, his stomach flips nervously at the thought of Blanchard sending him out on a mission with her. But no, how would Blanchard know how he feels about the Matheson girl? She’s obviously not the Matheson to whom he is referring.

“What makes you think Miles wants anything to do with me? Last time we teamed up it didn’t exactly go so well,” he thinks back to the disaster that was the Monroe Republic.

“Need I remind you that you and him were integral to stopping those Patriot assholes from wiping us all off the face of the earth?”

Yeah, that wasn’t so big a failure. But he still doubts Miles would be interested in whatever mission Blanchard is offering. He’s so wrapped up in being domestic with Rachel that Bass wouldn’t be surprised if Miles didn’t even miss him at all.

“Besides, I’ve already talked to Miles. He’s in if you are,” Blanchard continues. “I want you and him to gather up a small team and take out as many of the Plains war clans as you can. They’re getting a little too confident these days, encroaching on our territory. Somehow the fact that we annihilated the Patriots didn’t tip them off to the fact that Texas isn’t a force to be messed with.”

Bass usually has a clever retort, but right now he’s stumped. Blanchard’s right – he does like the sounds of that mission. He’s never enjoyed killing, but he’s good at it. It’s one of the only things he’s really good at, and it distracts him from all of his failures. He has a lot of those. 

“Alright. When do we leave?”


	2. Chapter 2

Miles didn’t know that Charlie was home when Blanchard came to visit. She’d let herself in before Miles and Rachel had gotten out of bed that morning, and was in the bathroom when Blanchard arrived. She’d heard his loud voice all the way upstairs, and curiosity had gotten the better of her. 

Charlie wasn’t above eavesdropping on her uncle, and she wasn’t about to announce her presence to President Blanchard. Something about him creeped her out. His eyes lingered on her whenever she was in the room with him, though his inappropriate remarks and unwanted advances had lessened after Miles threatened to castrate him next time he so much as spoke to Charlie without her permission. Now Blanchard only pestered her when Miles wasn’t around, which was blessedly rare.

Charlie doesn’t live with Rachel and Miles anymore. She moved out shortly after they settled into her grandfather’s house, when her fitful sleep was interrupted by the unwelcome sound of her mother and uncle rutting in the bedroom next door. There was no sleeping through her mother’s keening or Miles’ grunts, and she’d quickly determined that the only solution was to find her own place. It had been easier than she’d expected, as when she told Connor about the awkward situation he’d immediately invited her to move in with him.

She’s started spending a lot more time back at the Porter house lately. She spends most of her time with Gene, helping him out with his practice and learning more about medicine than she thought herself capable of. She never thought of herself as a healer, but Gene says she’s surprisingly adept at it. Better than her mother ever was, though Gene tells her that Rachel never showed much of an interest in the kind of science that involved other people. She mostly cleans things and Gene doesn’t let her touch the patients unless it’s absolutely necessary, but she’s learning a lot. She finds that she actually kind of likes it. In a way, it makes her feel closer to Maggie.

Miles grunts in her direction as Charlie slides into her seat at the kitchen table after Blanchard leaves, setting a plate of crispy bacon on the table in front of her.

“Where’s mom?” she asks.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Miles replies, shoving a piece of bacon in his mouth and turning back to the stove. Charlie still hasn’t quite gotten used to seeing this side of Miles. He’s like a different person, now that he and her mom aren’t trying to sneak around anymore. “She left before I got up. Bad mood, so I didn’t ask where she was going.”

Charlie chews on a piece of bacon and mulls over whether or not to mention what she heard of Miles’ conversation with Blanchard. She’s got a good idea of what Rachel’s reaction to Miles running off with Monroe to fight the war clans will look like, and it isn’t going to be pretty. Honestly, she’s a little annoyed herself that all it took was a request from Frank Blanchard for Miles to want to up and leave them. 

She decides against it, and Miles fries them up a couple of eggs which they eat in comfortable silence. Charlie wonders how different things might be here in Willoughby if the Patriots hadn’t killed Jason. Maybe instead of Connor, she and Jason would live together. Maybe they’d settle down and have a kid or two. 

The thought isn’t as comforting as Charlie expected. The idea of bearing, giving birth to, and raising children isn’t one that appeals to her. She already got her fill of that with Danny, and she’d give anything to bring her brother back, but she isn’t ready for that kind of responsibility. Lack of birth control options makes the possibility of babies a constant worry for Charlie, and she’s been avoiding Connor’s insistent touch for weeks.

“Thanks for breakfast,” Charlie pushes back her chair, leaving her plate on the table for Miles to deal with. She’d wash it herself, but he’d just end up rewashing it once she left. For a man who lived quite happily (happy for Miles, at least) without bathing for days on end, Miles was weirdly meticulous about washing dishes. Sometimes he scrubbed so hard that Charlie thought the dish he was washing would shatter in his hands. 

She walks back across town to her shared apartment over Willoughby’s single drinking establishment, and starts to pack her few belongings. If Miles and Monroe are going to kill clansmen, so is she.

She’s careful not to wake Connor, who is still sprawled fast asleep on their bed in the middle of their small bachelor apartment. It wasn’t too bad at first, but the tight space is starting to drive Charlie insane. She’s been itching to get back on the road, to move and explore and see what else is out there. Despite all of the atrocities she’s seen since leaving Sylvania Estates, she’s still curious. She still wants to know what else is out there. Back at Drexel’s, she’d thought that she was done with her daydreaming. She’d seen enough, and none of it good. But she’s restless and bored here, and although she feels useful helping her grandpa in the clinic, she can’t help but think that she’s missing something.

She’s good at healing, but she’d been good at killing too.

Gene can find someone to take over her few responsibilities at the clinic, though he might be put out for a few days. He won’t be happy about her leaving, nor will her mother, but Charlie left once before and they made it through. 

They’re leaving in the morning, and Charlie will be ready. It’s dark in the apartment, the windows small and nearly every surface is coated in a thick layer of dust. Before Connor moved it, it had been a storage space – little more than a glorified attic. For all that he was filled with pomp and self-importance, Connor wasn’t one for tidiness, and by the time Charlie moved in he was accustomed to living in a certain amount of filth. She doesn’t mind the dust or the darkness enough to do anything about it, but it’s a big contributor to her desire to spend most of her time elsewhere. She slings her pack over her shoulder, stirring up a large cloud of dust. She lets out a loud sneeze, waking Connor.

“Babe,” he says blearily, stretching across the bed. Before Charlie moved in with him, Connor hadn’t even bothered with sheets, instead opting to sleep on the bare mattress. Charlie had drawn the line there, insisting that if she was ever going to sleep with him again, it would be on a bed with sheets. Preferably clean ones. He’d gone out immediately, asking around town until he finally found someone willing to part with a set of queen-sized sheets. 

Connor reaches out for her, and Charlie drops her bag back on the ground before heading over to him. He grabs her arm and pulls her down to him for a kiss. His breath is awful, but she pretends not to notice. She’ll be gone in less than twenty-four hours, the least she can do is humour him while she’s still around. He rolls over, dragging her onto the bed next to him, and Charlie doesn’t protest when one of his hands ventures into his shirt. 

She doesn’t pull away like she has every time he’s tried to get further than this in the recent past, just goes along with it as he kisses her deeper. And then he’s taking her clothes off and she doesn’t mind it. It’s not as fun or exciting as it once was, but Connor isn’t a bad lover and he’s nothing if not enthusiastic. Anyway, he’s always had a thing about morning sex and Charlie knows that if he’s not getting any from her, he’ll find it somewhere else. She doesn’t fault him for it, they may live together but they’ve never made any kind of commitment. 

He’s rolling one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger and it’s then that Charlie realizes that she doesn’t care about Connor anymore. She never loved him, but she thought that one day she could. But her feelings, instead of growing stronger with time, have fizzled out. She’s just going through the motions, and that’s okay because in a way it’s break-up sex. She’s not coming back, at least not for a long time, and this a kind of fucked up, one-sided goodbye. It doesn’t take long before Connor is inside her, thrusting repetitively, and it feels good but he’s ignoring her clit so she can’t get off. She directs his hand to her clit, but he is distracted easily and can’t get a good rhythm going, so she decides to fake an orgasm and call it a day. He comes quickly after that, and falls off of her, slumping lazily across most of the bed. 

Charlie lies naked on the sliver of bed left for her and counts down the hours until she’ll be out of this town, out of this life.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun is just starting to climb into the sky when Bass emerges from his house, laden down with bags of all shapes and sizes. He spent last night gathering all of the weapons in his house, amassing a sizeable pile of swords, machetes, guns and knives, and now he carries them out to the wagon that will soon be piled with his and Miles’ supplies.

Blanchard hadn’t given them much notice for the task he had set them to. Less than twenty-four hours later, Bass and Miles were nearly ready to depart. They hadn’t spoken much about their decision to take the job, mostly due to the sheer amount of preparation they’d had to fit into one day. They’d sought out whatever food could be spared, packed up their bedrolls and whatever camp supplies they might need for the journey, and said their farewells. That part had taken much longer for Miles than Bass, though he could see the irritation in his friend’s sun-beaten face at the fact that he couldn’t just slip away unannounced.

Bass had said an awkward goodbye to his son, and from the stairs he’d glimpsed Charlie walking around their apartment in nothing but an oversized t-shirt. He’d looked away after just a fraction of a second, scolding himself for envying his son. He embraced Connor briefly before excusing himself to finish preparing for the journey.

Miles doesn’t say much as they pack the wagon, but neither does Bass. They have a mutual understanding that they both would rather be asleep at this time of day, but here they are as planned. Soon they’re ready to go, and Bass waits on the bench in the wagon while Miles kisses Rachel goodbye. _Thank god the bastard didn’t invite the noose around his neck,_ Bass thinks. He may be trying to be nice to Rachel these days, but she can’t read his mind. He reminds himself that Miles loves her and that makes her family, it doesn’t help. She’ll never consider him family, not after Philly. He understands her resentment – he’d held her hostage, dangled her children in front of her and threatened to kill them, but he hadn’t known what else to do. Desperation makes people do stupid, unforgiveable things.

They decide to head north to Austin in hopes of finding a handful of soldiers to recruit. Bass isn’t thrilled with the idea; they hardly compare to the Patriot assholes, but he doesn’t trust Blanchard’s men. Unfortunately, he has no better idea to offer. 

They’re a mile or two out of Willoughby when they hear a loud thud echo in the back of the wagon, and Miles pulls the horses to a stop, whipping around to see what’s going on. Bass follows his gaze, but whatever he thought he’d find behind them, it wasn’t Charlie Matheson, crossbow strapped to her back, dumping a heavy-looking pack with the rest of their things.

“Hope you’ve got an extra bedroll,” she smirks, and for a moment Bass is blind to everything but that mischievous dimple in her right cheek.

“Charlie, what the hell are you doing?” Miles asks, his face twisting in a combination of fatigue and irritation.

“What’s it look like? I’m going on an adventure,” Charlie says, shrugging off her crossbow. She climbs over the partition and squeezes onto the bench between Bass and Miles. It’s a tight fit, and Bass can feel their arms and thighs touching. He’s sure it’s nothing to her, but the sudden pressure against his side is enough to put him on edge.

Charlie flings an arm over Miles’ shoulders, “Besides, you know you’d be totally bored without me.”

“You shouldn’t be here. How did you even know we were leaving? I looked for you last night to say goodbye but you weren’t around,” Miles says. Bass tries not to think about the last time he saw Charlie, the way the hem of her shirt brushed her upper thigh when she moved. He’s sure she didn’t realise she was visible from the doorway when he’d come by yesterday, or else there’s no way she would have stretched the way she did. Not that he’d been looking, of course.

“I was busy,” she says. “And I might have been in your house when President Blanchard was telling you about the job he had for you. Way to ditch me, jackass.” She punches her uncle’s arm playfully.

Bass hasn’t seen Charlie in such bright spirits in a long time. Maybe ever. He hasn’t been privy to many of her happier moments – after all, he’s used to being the one responsible for causing her pain. He’d seen a few unguarded moments on the road from New Vegas after he’d rescued her in Pottsboro, before she’d remembered who her companion was and grew sombre again. He isn’t sure if he can count the stolen moments with Connor during their second trip back from New Vegas, when he’d glimpsed her smiling from afar and felt the weighty pit of jealousy growing in his stomach.

“There’s no convincing you to go back, is there.”

“Not a chance,” Charlie says.

Miles rolls his eyes, but doesn’t bother arguing with her. The Mathesons learned a long time ago that once Charlie has an idea in her head, there’s no convincing her otherwise. The girl is unshakeable. 

For the most part, they travel in silence, taking turns attempting to nap in the back of the wagon. They quickly enact a rule that only two people can be on the bench at a time. It’s really not wide enough for three. Bass avoids Charlie for the most part, though that’s more difficult when she’s sitting next to him on the bench than when she’s asleep in the back. He doesn’t sneak glances at her when Miles’ focus is elsewhere. 

The sun is high above them, beating down on their dusty heads when Bass wakes to the slightly muffled sound of Charlie and Miles chatting and the steady rhythm of hooves pounding the dirt road. Even after two days, Miles is still chastising his niece for leaving without saying goodbye to her mother and the geriatric.

“Okay, I should have said bye to Aaron and Priscilla, but we both know that mom and grandpa would have done whatever they could to make me stay if I’d said anything to them,” Charlie argues. 

“Maybe you should listen to them for once,” Miles replies.

“Like you do? Look, I’m glad you and my mom are happy or whatever, but she cut your balls off Uncle Miles. You’re not the person you were before... y’know. The tower.”

Bass sits up. He’d thought he was the only one who’d noticed how much Rachel’s influence had changed Miles. Hearing the same words he’d said to Miles months ago from the mouth of his beloved niece was gratifying.

“Is that such a bad thing? We’ve all changed, Charlie. And please stop talking about my balls,” Miles says tersely. Bass lets out a hoarse laugh, notifying his companions to his wakefulness. He claps a hand on Miles’ shoulder and tells his friend that his turn to ride in the back is up. Miles seems grateful for the escape from the turn his conversation with Charlie has taken.

Bass and Miles trade places, Miles handing the reigns over to Charlie before climbing over into the back. Bass leaves as much space as possible between him and Charlie on the bench, sliding so far over that a good rattle of the wagon could knock him right out of his seat.

“Miles didn’t say where we’re going, so if we have to turn you’ll have to let me know,” Charlie says, glancing sidelong at him.

“Austin,” is all Bass replies.

“What, why? I thought we were going to the Plains Nation?” Austin doesn’t hold fond memories for Charlie, Bass recalls.

“Thought you didn’t know where we were going.”

“I meant tonight. Why Austin?”

“You know somewhere else to find soldiers to fight the war clans?”

Charlie doesn’t respond, but at the next junction in the road she turns the wagon north instead of carrying on westward. Bass reaches across her, snatching the reigns out of her hands to right their path.

“It’s faster if we turn here,” Charlie grapples for the reigns, and the horses toss their heads in agitation.

“Faster to where?”

“We don’t have to go to Austin. I have a better plan.”

Bass gives her an incredulous look, but he doesn’t say anything. He’ll hear her out.

“We don’t need soldiers. They’ll just slow us down.” Charlie has control of the horses again, and they continue down the road of her choice. Bass is surprised that the short commotion didn’t wake Miles, but it’s just as possible that Miles is choosing to ignore this dispute.

“What better way to beat the war clans than to be a war clan?” Charlie is serving Bass that dimply grin that he can’t say no to, and he has to admit that it’s an intriguing idea. He isn’t entirely sure what Charlie has in mind, but he’s looking forward to finding out.


	4. Chapter 4

When Charlie decided to join her uncle on his northern excursion, she hadn’t much considered the fact that it would be just her, Miles, and Monroe in a wagon for days on end. She was beginning to regret that oversight. 

Miles had been grumpy since he woke up in the back of the wagon to find that Austin was no longer on the itinerary. Charlie had thought it best, and Monroe had agreed, not to tell Miles about her plans for Kansas. They’d made up a series of excuses, convincing him that they’d find soldiers elsewhere along the way. There was no way that Miles would approve of the plan Charlie and Monroe had begun to formulate, so they’d just have to wait to tell him until he had no other alternative.

During her waking hours Charlie draws conversation from her companions like pulling teeth. She babbles to fill the hours, and asks questions that they answer with as few syllables as possible. Never did she imagine she’d so badly miss Aaron’s incessant chatter. She’d forgotten how tight-lipped Miles could be when he was in a mood, and conversation has never flowed easily between her and Monroe.

It’s funny how Charlie’s anger towards Monroe fizzled and flared when they were stuck together in the past. She’d hated him so much on that first trip to Willoughby, hated that he’d even showed up in Pottsboro, hated even more what would have happened if he hadn’t. It made her skin crawl, the way he’d saved her life like he wasn’t the shadow haunting her through all of her worst nightmares. What she’d said to him that night, the bitter words she’d spat in his face, she’d meant them all, but now she wasn’t so sure.

It makes sitting on the narrow bench next to him, just a sliver of empty air separating their thighs, an uncanny experience, memories of similar trips floating back to her in the silence. The trips she'd previously taken in Monroe's company - that first trip from New Vegas, then back for the killers with Connor, and even their ill-fated visit to Austin - hadn't been the most enjoyable experiences. But even traveling with Monroe and his son had been less awkward than this. There was history between Miles and Monroe that Charlie could only guess at, decades of their lives that she wasn’t a part of and would never comprehend. 

“How’d my son take it? You wanting to spend a month on the road with a pair of old men instead of playing house with him,” Monroe breaks the silence, startling Charlie into a stunned speechlessness. It’s the first time he’s initiated conversation with her since they left Willoughby.

“I didn’t tell him,” Charlie says after regaining her faculties, “and you and Miles may be old but you’re way more exciting than anybody else I know.”

They segue back into silence, but she notices a subtle, satisfied upward tug at one corner of Monroe’s mouth. Charlie hears shuffling in the back of the wagon, and a moment later Miles is making himself comfortable on a pile of bags toward the front of the wagon.

“I never liked that boy,” he grumbles. “Don’t know what you see in him.”

“Sex, mostly. He’s hot.” Monroe chokes at Charlie’s bluntness, and she watches him splutter, Miles glaring at them both from his makeshift seat. It’s not true, and Charlie’s not entirely sure what she saw in Connor either, but she feels a swell of pride at managing to make both of them squirm with four little words. Connor had fun at first, a distraction from the dullness of life in Willoughby, but these days he’s little more than a drunken layabout. The death of his and Monroe’s plans of rebuilding the Republic had changed him. Still, she smiles at the reactions of the men beside and behind her. Miles has made it quite clear that he doesn’t adjust well to the idea that Charlie isn’t a naïve little kid he needs to protect. Monroe has been less than supportive of whatever is between Charlie and Connor since the very beginning.

“Now I really don’t like him,” Miles says after a moment’s pause. Charlie laughs out loud, but as her laughter fades they fall back into silence. She’s conscious of Monroe’s eyes lingering on her cheek. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back, wriggling in her seat in an attempt to relieve some of the pain in her tailbone. She’d kill for a cushion to sit on, but at least they aren’t stuck walking all the way to Kansas. That’d be a long, miserable trip.

 

They’ve been sitting in their own filth for days, and Charlie can feel a thick layer of dust coating her skin. She tastes it on her lips whenever she opens her mouth or takes a sip from her canteen. On the fourth day of their trip Charlie glimpses a river as the sun is beginning to set. She nudges Miles, whose eyes light up slightly at the sight of fresh running water. A few minutes later, they’re unloading their gear from the wagon and setting up camp for the night in a clearing next to the river. It’s not a very easily protected site, but they’re all desperate enough to clean themselves that they’re willing to take the risk. 

Charlie gets to work starting a fire, hoping to boil some water to refill their canteens. It’s getting colder out, but she stares longingly down the shallow slope towards the water, where Miles and Monroe have stripped off their shirts and are beginning to wade into the water. Something niggles at Charlie at the sight of Monroe’s torso, an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. She pushes it aside and feeds the fire, slowly helping it to grow. When she glances back toward the water Monroe is splashing Miles, who reaches over and forcefully dunks Monroe underwater. He comes up sputtering for air, but Charlie thinks he’s laughing, and when he tosses his head back his curls, in need of a trim, glisten in the waning sunlight.

This glimpse of the boyish duo they once might have been makes Charlie smile. She resumes setting up the camp, unfolding their bedrolls around the fire, whistling gently to herself a tune that she picked up from Monroe on the road. Satisfied with the state of the camp, she starts down the swell to the river. It isn’t until she approaches the shore that she realises what was once playful roughhousing between friends has turned into a full-blown fight. Miles and Monroe are scrambling to stay upright in the current, Monroe struggling out of the headlock Miles’ has trapped him in. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Charlie yells, plowing into the water. Monroe frees himself before she can reach them, throwing a punch that connects with Miles’ cheek. Charlie pushes herself between them, and they’re yelling insults at each other over her head, trying to fight around her narrow body. “Stop it, you imbeciles!” 

She shoves her elbow into Monroe’s ribs, and he steps backward, losing his footing and falling into the water. It’s not deep or fast enough to drag him downstream, but he is temporarily debilitated as he chokes on the river water.

“What did you do?” Charlie demands, turning her attention to him, her toes curled around a rock to keep from slipping.

“Who says I'm the asshole?” Monroe is trying to regain his footing, but can’t seem to get all the way up without getting knocked down again.

“You’re both assholes,” Charlie snaps. “What the hell, you were fine two minutes ago!”

“It’s got nothing to do with you Charlie,” Miles says. “This is between Bass and me.”

“No, it’s not! If you two are going to fight all the way to Kansas, that’s a problem for me. I didn’t sign up to be your mediator.”

“Nobody asked you to tag along,” Miles reminds her. 

“Don’t be a dick, Miles.” Charlie looks down at her clothes, now soaked through, and inhales slowly through her nose. “Why did you even agree to ride off into the sunset together if you hate each other so much? If I hadn’t decided to ‘tag along’ you’d probably have killed each other by now.”

“Leave it, Charlie,” Miles is using the General voice, the steely clipped tone that tells Charlie that the conversation is over. General Miles Matheson doesn’t take well to insolence, and it only serves to make Charlie angrier. How dare he treat her like some stranger butting in where she doesn’t belong? Still, she backs down with a final glare that shifts from Miles, tall and self-possessed, to Monroe who has just managed to pull himself to his feet, slightly resembling a drowned poodle.

Miles and Monroe slink back to the bank of the river and although she’s fuming, Charlie can’t quite stop her eyes from wandering down to Monroe’s ass, his pants clinging in a way that she can’t ignore. Water trickles down his back from his too-long hair, disappearing into his waistband. It’s not a bad view, if she tries to forget who she’s looking at.

“Can you guys bring my bag down here? It has a change of clothes in it,” Charlie yells in their direction, and though neither man responds to her request, a few minutes later Monroe returns with her bag as well as his own. He drops her pack on the bank, then starts making his way upstream. Charlie scrubs the dust off as best she can, working quickly as the cold water begins to numb her fingers and toes. She’s shivering by the time she emerges from the water, the sun now having disappeared over the horizon, and she yells a warning to Miles that she’s about to get changed.

She tugs a change of clothes out of her pack, then manoeuvres out of her pants and tank top, peeling off her wet underwear. It’s too cold to dry off comfortably, so she tugs her dry clothes over her damp body and feels them dampen against her skin. Folding her wet clothes, she heads back up the slope toward Miles and the fire. Monroe has returned to the camp by the time Charlie has finished changing and she catches him staring at the sliver of tanned stomach visible over the waist of her pants. His eyes shift upwards, meeting Charlie’s, and she’s almost positive he blushes slightly at the eye contact, turning away from her. _What the hell was that?_ A trick of the fire, she tells herself.

She eats the meagre meal Miles has prepared, warming herself by the fire in silence. The open sky above them is scattered with brilliant stars, the moon hanging half-full and reflecting off the water. It’s bright for October, and they each make a few trips to and from the river to ensure they have enough water to get them through the next few days, just in case things go awry. It’s cold when Charlie leaves the circle of the fire, but when she’s finally able to wrap herself in her bedroll that night she’s so tired that she barely cares that the nights are growing longer and colder.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the support! I love reading and responding to your comments so much. This fandom has been so welcoming to me and I'm just bursting with love <3

If the Mathesons weren’t so fucking irresistible, Bass’s life would be so much easier. Being around Miles is torturous, and this proximity to Charlie is driving him to an all new sort of madness, but he can’t walk away. He’s never been able to walk away from the ones he loves. And look where that’s gotten him.

He just can’t seem to make things work with Miles. He’s tried. Good god, has he tried. He’s been doing everything right, and it’s made no fucking difference. He’s no closer to forgiveness than he was the day Miles accused him of hurting Charlie on the way to Willoughby. Sure, he trusted him with taking care of Davis, but that was more out of necessity than anything else. If Bass hadn’t taken Davis, they all could have died and the whole plan would have gone up in smoke. 

The way Miles had looked at him when Bass showed up at the church, Davis in tow, had shook Bass to the core. It said everything his words didn’t. Would a fucking thank you kill him? Wasn’t it enough to be there when he was needed the most? When it would have been so fucking easy to kill the president, to run off with Connor to start their new Republic. But no. Bass gave up his son, his son, for Miles, and he didn’t even get a goddamn thank you.

So yeah, he’s pissed off. Yeah, he threw the first punch in the water yesterday. It wasn’t planned, but neither of them had been surprised when things turned violent, because things always did between them. Conversation had never been their strong suit – if they’d been capable of talking things out, the last seven years would have been very different. Blows were the only way they knew to temporarily relieve the tension between them. It wasn’t the most effective mode of communication, but it would have to do.

They traveled without event for another day and a half before reaching Dallas. They hadn’t planned on stopping in the city, instead opting to skirt by and continue on until nightfall, but when Bass saw the city growing in the distance he gripped the reigns a little tighter and headed on in. At Miles’ protests, Bass’ only response was a growled, “I need a drink.” Miles hadn’t argued, and Bass could only assume that he felt the same way. Charlie was just grateful to be around other people for the first time in nearly a week.

Bass never thought that at night’s end he’d be the most sober of the three.

The Dallas they found was unrecognizable from the Dallas in Bass’s head. He’d never actually been to Texas before the Blackout, so the only glimpses he’d had of Dallas had been on the odd television show or news coverage. Even after all the years, that was still what he’d pictured when he’d decided to make this detour. Instead, he’s struck by the utter disrepair surrounding them as they enter the city. The skyscrapers in the city’s core loom over the horizon like horrific obelisks, dark and foreboding. The brightness he’d once ascribed to the city has vanished, leaving the city dull and uninviting. It’s midday, yet the outskirts of the city are completely vacant. Bass remembers that it was once the third largest city in Texas, but now it’s a ghost town.

They amble through town, hoping to find a friendly face or at least somewhere to drink and spend the night. When they reach the city centre, they find it to be a more bustling place than the road in would have them believe. That could be intentional, Bass supposes, a way of discouraging strangers from coming through. It’s mostly successful, he’s sure, especially given Charlie’s drawing of her cross-bow coupled with her suggestion that they skip Dallas after all.

The people of Dallas are suspicious but not unkind. Thankfully they don’t jump to any unsavoury conclusions about their presence, and they don’t seem to recognise the infamous Sebastian Monroe and Miles Matheson. Bass doesn’t think they’d be so friendly if they knew who their visitors were, so when the townspeople ask he says that his name is Malcolm, while Miles goes for his standard Stu. 

They find a safe spot to leave the wagon and head straight for the nearest bar, asking directions from the young woman Miles pays to look after the horses. The bar is run down, like the rest of the city, but it serves its function. There’s even a band playing on a makeshift stage to one side of the room. They’re not very good, but even bad music has a way of lightening the mood.

A few hours and more than a couple of drinks into the night, a steady trickle of patrons fill the bar. Bass gets separated from Charlie and Miles, which he doesn’t really mind. He’s distracted by the cleavage displayed by the pretty blonde he’s talking to in a quiet corner of the bar. He’s pretty sure she’s a prostitute and he’s not interested, but he’s happy for the distraction. The whiskey is making his head light and his body warm. He sways gently to the music, which sounds more distant in his ears than it actually is. He can’t quite make out what the woman is saying, but he smiles and nods anyway and she seems to find that agreeable. 

She’s grabbing his hand and pulling him toward a dance floor when he spots Charlie talking to a handsome young man across the room. Suddenly he doesn’t want to talk to the pretty blonde anymore, and he’s hit by a jealous fury that he has no right to. He plants a kiss on the woman’s cheek, excusing himself to join Charlie and her new friend.

“Mon-“ Bass still has enough control of his faculties to stop Charlie from shouting out his name, mouthing ‘Malcolm’ to her just in time. “Malcolm!” she cries as he approaches, and she’s never looked so happy to see him before.

“Charlie,” he replies. “Having fun are we?” He feels more sober than he did a moment ago, and next to Charlie he’s barely tipsy. She’s leaning against the bar and when he approaches she steps away, falling forward. The tall dark haired man she’s been talking to catches her, and Bass wants to burn his hands off for touching her. Objectively speaking the man is good looking, with strong cheekbones and a straight, proud nose. His hair is thick and he has a hint of stubble across his jaw. Charlie seems utterly enamoured.

“Malcolm, this is my new friend…” She trails off, looking to her companion for help.

“Seth,” he reminds her.

“Seth! My friend Seth!” Charlie is a bubbly drunk, which amuses Bass, but she’s still tottering slightly so he reaches out to steady her.

“Nice to meet you,” Bass says gruffly. He turns to Charlie. “I’m sure Seth here has perfectly honourable intentions, but don’t you have a _friend_ at home?”

Charlie’s face scrunches up, as if she’s thinking very hard. “Oh! Connor? He’s probably fucked half of Willoughby by now. I’m a free lady,” she exclaims. Fury rises quickly in Bass and he clenches his fists until his knuckles begin to whiten, the circulation cut off. He’s going to have to have a little chat with his ungrateful brat of a son when he returns to Willoughby.

“Maybe a little too free. Let’s go find Miles and get you out of here.” He steers her away from the bar, and Seth who is giving Bass an all-too-familiar look. It says that Bass is a cock block of the worst degree, and Bass has been on the giving end of that look many times. That doesn’t mean he’s just going to let Charlie make dumb drunken mistakes, like sleeping with the first stranger she meets. He tells himself that it’s because Miles would kill him for not keeping Charlie from being a hormonal idiot.

They’re barely five feet away and Charlie has already forgotten about the man at the bar, and she’s now staring goofily up at Bass. He can practically see her brain churning slowly behind her eyes.

“What?” He asks, scanning the room for Miles. His attention is pulled by Charlie’s fingers on his face, stroking his beard.

“I liked it better when it was shorter,” she says, her voice airy. He’s hyper aware of the fact that she’s touching him, and he knows it’s just the alcohol making her act without her usual boundaries but he likes it anyway. “Your hair, too.” Her hand ghosts over his jaw to plunge into his curls, and he stiffens. She’s way too close now, and he should pull away but he can’t. “The curls are really sexy when they’re shorter,” she whispers, just loud enough that he can’t be sure if she actually said it or if it’s just his imagination again.

He hasn’t dreamt about her since before they left Willoughby, but he has a feeling that’s going to change tonight.

“Miles!” she shouts, untangling her fingers from his hair and lunging across the room. It takes Bass a second before he’s capable of following her, hoping her slip up goes unnoticed. He finds Miles half-conscious with a dark-haired Latina woman draped across him like a blanket. Typical. Bass taps her on the shoulder and she lifts her head. She bears a striking resemblance to Nora, though she lacks Nora’s spirit. Miles hadn’t loved many people in all the years he and Bass had been inseparable, but he’d loved with a fervour that made it hard not to miss being one of those select few. 

He could see why Miles was still looking for her, even after her death. Miles had never had to slow down for Nora, because she’d been more than ready to keep up. Bass had always been a little bit jealous of her, the way she threw herself into everything she did without hesitation. She’d been headstrong and so self-assured, wholly her own person. He couldn’t imagine a life like that. 

This woman resembles Nora, yes, but she is not Nora in all of the ways that matter, so Bass gestures for her to make herself scarce, and she does. Miles opens his eyes, and they’re glassy and vacant. His vision focuses, and Bass watches as shame seems to settle over him like a great, dark cloud.

“Don’t tell Rachel,” is all he says before getting up and heading for the door.

After Miles’ departure, Bass decides that it’s probably time to call it a night. He hauls Charlie up from where she’s slumped on a barstool at an otherwise empty table, her head resting upon the tabletop, and escorts her outside. She stumbles down the stairs to the road, tripping over the cracks in the cement. She’s talking the whole time, but he can only make out every third or fourth word and none of it makes sense.

“Pig … home … asshole … not you…” Eventually he stops trying to decipher her incoherent thoughts and focuses on steering her toward the single tiny inn Dallas has to offer. They’ve nearly reached their destination when Bass spots Miles sprawled on the sidewalk, asleep. Babysitting Mathesons was not what he’d had in mind when he suggested they spend a night in Dallas.

He manages to get uncle and niece into the inn and up the stairs to the room, stopping to ask where to find their room. As soon as he’s closed the door behind him, Miles is climbing fully clothed onto the bed. He’s asleep again before Bass can even tell him to take his boots off. Charlie follows him, though she at least strips off her jacket and boots before pulling up the blanket and snuggling in next to her uncle. Looking at them both asleep before him, he’s struck by a strong desire to kiss them both on the forehead and tuck them in. _Where the fuck did that come from?_ He pushes the uncharacteristic thought aside, blaming the whiskey still affecting his brain.

Bass hesitates for a moment after pulling off his boots and draping his jacket across the back of a chair. There’s something about sloppiness that Bass can’t abide by, even when he’s drunk, so he moves Charlie’s boots and jacket from where she kicked them off haphazardly. He desperately wants to sleep in that bed, because he has a feeling it will be a while before a bed becomes available to him again, but something feels wrong about sharing a bed with Charlie, even in the most chaste of contexts. _Fuck it_ , he thinks, claiming the last segment of the bed as his own. 

He closes his eyes and is met by the image of Charlie changing by the river, her body damp and lithe and bare, just for a moment. He’d looked away as soon as he’d realised what he was seeing, but that hadn’t stopped it from imprinting permanently into his brain. He rolls onto his side on top of the blankets, putting as much distance between he and Charlie as the bed will allow. He’ll stop thinking about her, he promises himself once again. But tonight… tonight he’ll dream.


	6. Chapter 6

Charlie wakes late the next morning, her head pounding before her eyes have even opened. She opens her eyes slowly, squinting at the light streaming into the room through the wide east-facing window. Next to her Miles snores loudly, half of his limbs hanging over the side of the bed. On her other side, the bed is empty. A hazy memory of Monroe’s body against hers in the night, his weight shifting toward her in his sleep, but he’s gone now. For a second she thinks he’s abandoned them for good this time, that she won’t see him again.

But when she sits up she spots movement at the bedroom door, and he’s entering the room as quietly as possible. He’s trying not to wake them, she realises with a smile. Her eyes travel to his face, and her smile drops. He looks different. Good different. Heat rushes to her cheeks as she remembers what she drunkenly told him last night. _The curls are really sexy when they’re shorter._ Sexy. She’d told him that she found him, or at least his hair, sexy. Mortification washes over her and for once in her life she can’t make eye contact.

Because she’d told him his hair looked sexy when it was shorter, and he’d cut it off. Charlie doesn’t want to think about what that means, but she can’t stop herself. The scruffy beard is gone too, and she almost misses it but damn if he doesn’t look good clean shaven. She blushes, vaguely recalling running her fingers along it last night. She vows never to drink that much again.

She’s embarrassed about her behaviour last night, though she doesn’t remember all the details. She can’t remember getting home, but at least she woke up next to Miles instead of some stranger. That isn’t to say that she doesn’t like stumbling into bed with strangers from time to time, but she can’t imagine the humiliation of returning to Miles and Monroe the next morning. She’d never hear the end of it.

She and Monroe nod to acknowledge one another as Charlie gets up, neither wanting to be responsible for waking Miles, who lets out a sleepy snarl and rolls over, flinging himself spread eagle across the bed. Charlie chuckles, pulling on her boots and brushing her fingers through her knotted hair. They have a lot to do before getting back on the road, and she has a feeling Miles is going to be much help with any of it.

 

It’s mid-afternoon by the time they leave Dallas, having spent a few hours trading with the townspeople for more supplies, and all three are hung over and short-tempered. They don’t talk about the events of the previous night, and when Miles makes a snide comment about Monroe’s newly shorn hair, his blue eyes dart to Charlie’s and she fights herself not to blush, failing spectacularly. 

Monroe sits next to her uncle on the bench, looking down at a worn paperback. It’s how he spends the majority of their time on the road, when he isn’t in charge of the horses or asleep. Charlie would never have pegged Monroe as the literary type, and Miles had teased him about it when he’d pulled a book from his bag on that first day. There are a lot of things Charlie doesn’t know about Sebastian Monroe.

Sitting on the lumpy makeshift seat in the back of the wagon, Charlie resists running her hands through Monroe’s now-cropped curls. She wasn’t lying when she said his hair was incredibly sexy. Instead, she very lightly taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. 

“I’m reading,” he says, looking up from his book.

“Yes, I’m aware. That book you had before… the one about the dinosaurs? Do you still have it?” Her head is still aching, but she hopes that getting drawn into a book will distract her from her hangover. 

“Mmhmm. It’s in the green bag.”

“Can I read it?” Asking for a damn book shouldn’t make her feel so vulnerable. It’s just a book, it doesn’t mean anything. 

“You know where it is, don’t you,” his eyes drop back to his book and she’s forgotten again. She searches around her for his green canvas bag, finding it on the other side of the wagon. She crawls over and tugs open the bag, and books spill out onto her lap. _Carrie, The Lord of the Flies, The Casual Vacancy_ and a book with no cover but the words Harry Potter #4 scrawled across the front in uneven handwriting. There are others, but when Charlie finds _Jurassic Park_ she shoves the others back into the bag and hurries back to her seat. It felt strangely intimate, rifling through Monroe’s bag full of books, like she was suddenly seeing parts of him that she’d never been allowed access to before. 

She turns the first page of the soft paperback and traces the inscription on the first page with her index finger. _Happy thirteenth birthday Kyle, love mom and dad. September 21 2010._ Charlie’s mind begins to fill in the history of this book, how it ended up in Monroe’s hands. Had he had it before the Blackout, or was it something he’d found after society collapsed? But no, if it had been a pre-Blackout possession, it would have gone up in flames with the rest of Philly. Charlie pictures Monroe picking through abandoned houses in search of books, picking his way to New Vegas after the Tower. It’s impressive, that he’s collected all of these books in such a short amount of time. Tearing her attention from her daydreams, she begins to read.

 

They’re barely out of the city when they stop to make camp for the night, pulling off of the Dallas Parkway into a small forested area next to a rushing creek. Charlie suspects that she’ll be able to find wildlife for their dinner.

“I still don’t see why we couldn’t stay in one of the thousands of houses we passed,” Charlie grumbles, grabbing her crossbow and ambling off into the forest. Miles and Monroe can set up camp for once. 

She follows the creek downstream, the only sound that of the forest floor crunching under her boots. Her headache has diminished, but she’s still tired from the heat and the late night. Climbing over a moss-covered fallen tree blocking her path, she spots a squirrel scampering across the ground, stopping and surveying its surroundings at the bottom of a pine tree. Charlie stills, not wanting to be sensed by the rodent. Slowly she raises her crossbow and takes aim. The squirrel is large and hale, its fur mottled red and black. Charlie’s mouth waters slightly thinking about the amount of meat she’ll be able to harvest from it. She cocks the bow, eyes not leaving her prey, sights her target, and lets loose the bolt. It flies too quickly for the squirrel to react, and Charlie rushes over to pick up her dinner. Split three ways, it definitely won’t be a feast, but a night with meat is better than a night without. Grabbing the squirrel by the tail, she heads back toward the stream to skin and clean her catch.

She’s working slowly, squatted at the side of the creek, when she hears a branch snap behind her. Charlie whirls, but she’s not fast enough. A hand clamps over her mouth, but even if she could shout for help, Miles and Monroe are too far away to hear her. Her eyes dart around her, counting her attackers. A man and a woman approach, and she sees the man wince at his mistake, stepping off of the twig that gave them away. 

“Way to go, Joel,” the woman says, her nostrils flaring. She pushes her greasy brown hair back off of her forehead and reaches for the knife in her belt. She directs her attention to Charlie, “Hand over the weapons.”

Charlie struggles against the grip of the stranger holding her, jerking her head to see his face. He’s a plain-looking man, but the deadness in his eyes frightens Charlie more than the idea of these people getting hold of her weapons. He kicks her crossbow towards his friends, but Charlie’s knife is hidden under her jacket. If she can get free, just for a second…

“Hold on to her, but let her talk,” the woman says, twirling her knife between her fingers idly. The man holding Charlie wrenches her arms behind her back, removing his hand from her mouth. The quick motion pulls at the muscles in her shoulders and she winces, trying not to let them see that she’s in pain.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble. Just take what you want and go,” Charlie says, her voice low and measured.

“Sweetie, we both know that’s just not going to happen.” The woman’s voice takes on an artificial saccharine tone, and Charlie knows that this isn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped. “Where are your friends?” the woman asks.

“What friends?”

“Don’t play dumb. We know there are more of you somewhere around here. If you were alone, you’d be carrying a lot more than a crossbow and a dead squirrel.” The other man, Joel, is younger than his companions and more skittish. He’s small, his face gaunt and hollowed out, undernourished, and Charlie would feel bad for him if his friends weren’t threatening her. He speaks quickly, his words sliding into one another. Charlie struggles against the man behind her, but his grip just tightens.

“Take us to your friends, if you ever want to see them again,” the woman says, the syrup gone from her voice.

“Why? So you can steal all our stuff and kill us anyway?” Charlie doesn’t see the point in taking the fight to Miles and Monroe if she doesn’t have to.

“Smarter than she looks.” The woman’s lips quirk up into a sarcastic smile.

“Much,” Charlie says, stomping her boot down on her captor’s instep as hard as she can. Distracted by his pain, the man drops her wrists and Charlie reaches for her knife. Without hesitation, she stabs him in the thigh. It won’t kill him, but blood loss and pain are good enough for now. She whirls toward the other two, just as the young man – more a boy than a man, really – lunges for her crossbow. 

The woman jerks forward, knife ready, and Charlie is ready for a good fight. A thrill rushes through her as she her heart beats faster, adrenaline coursing through her blood. She smiles as she ducks the woman’s attack, shifting closer to the boy. He has her crossbow now, which would make for more of a threat if he could cock it. Fortunately for Charlie, the boy lacks the muscle to pull the string back far enough, try as he may. He’s focusing so hard that it barely takes any effort for Charlie to sneak up on him, knocking the bow from his hands. She reaches it before he can and whips it around, slamming the heavy wooden weapon into his head with a thud. He crumples to the ground, the trauma turning his brain off. She doesn’t think she’s killed him, but it doesn’t matter right now. 

The man and the woman are both up now, and Charlie readies her crossbow, firing a bolt at the man as he comes toward her, blood spilling down his leg. It pierces his chest, and he lets out a loud, inhuman cry as he falls. 

The woman is too close, and the crossbow too slow for Charlie to shoot her too. The woman is heavier than Charlie, and when she plows into Charlie with the whole force of her weight, Charlie is forced to the ground. Her crossbow falls aside, out of reach, and the woman slashes her knife as Charlie jerks, just nicking her cheek instead of bisecting her throat. She pushes back against the woman, trying to free her knife arm trapped under her weight. Her free hand curls into a fist, connecting with the woman’s stomach. It doesn’t have the force to knock the wind out of her, but it helps. The woman drops her knife, and when Charlie reaches for it with her free arm she can just nudge it with her fingers. Unable to pull it close enough to utilize, she uses her fingers to push it away, hoping that it will be out of the woman’s reach as well. 

Charlie’s arm still stuck beneath her, she feels more vulnerable than she has in a very long time. She can get the upper hand back, she promises herself. It wasn’t a stupid decision to take them on by herself. She can do this. 

Focused on her struggle to free herself, Charlie’s breath floods out of her when she feels hands pressing into her neck. Her mind flashes to that horrible day in Austin, Jason’s fingers cutting off her air supply. She tries to push away the unwelcome thoughts, but it’s overwhelming. Tears rush into her eyes as she begins to choke. She can’t move for a moment, but her survival instinct kicks in and she grabs a fistful of the other woman’s hair and yanks as hard as she can. It’s just enough to pull her attention, and Charlie lets go of her hair to plunge her thumb into her attacker’s eye. The woman recoils, scrambling off of Charlie’s torso. Her arm free and her breath rushing back to her, Charlie slashes her knife across the woman’s neck, splattering them both in blood.

She sits there in the dirt for a long moment, her breath laboured and body beginning to sting and ache. The thought of Jason’s hands around her throat lingers, taunting her. She can feel ghostly hands on her skin, skimming over her with the breeze. She surveys the scene around her, the boy crumpled in the grass near the stream, blood pooling around his head, the dead-eyed man splayed in the dirt, an arrow protruding from his chest grotesquely. She doesn’t look at the woman, whose blood covers her. She’s killed so many people in the past year. At first, she’d kept a count, tallying them up until she could no longer keep track. It sickens her, how many brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers she’s killed. How much she enjoys it.

That’s the part that surprises her. In the moment, it’s like she lives for it, to spill blood and maim anyone who dares attempt to hurt her. But it’s the moments afterward, these moments, that kill her. The moments when she remembers that these are people, that she’s just ended a life with barely a thought. It’s sick, the highest of highs followed by the lowest of lows.

Standing on shaky legs, she yanks the arrow from the man’s chest and collects the rest of their weapons as well as her squirrel carcass, one side now covered in dirt. Her eyes stinging with tears that she doesn’t want shed, she finishes cleaning her catch before heading back upstream toward camp.

 

It’s dark by the time Charlie emerges from the forest into the clearing where Miles and Monroe have set up camp. Her bedroll is laid out by the fire, ready for her to drop into. She feels empty, walking towards the alluring heat of the campfire, like a part of her has become so exhausted, so beaten down, that its broken down and died. It isn’t until she’s standing in the glow of the firelight that Miles and Monroe notice the dried blood spackled across her face and torso. The horror and concern in their faces reminds her that she must look frightful.

“What happened?” Miles leaps to his feet, throwing the stale biscuit he’s been gnawing on onto his blanket. “Are you okay?”

Charlie shrugs off his attention, not letting him close enough to examine her. She holds up the skinned rabbit carcass. “I brought dinner.”

“A little late for that,” Monroe says quietly, his eyes working over her body to look for any wounds. Charlie’s sure that come morning she will be wearing a necklace of finger-shaped bruises, but for now her most noticeable injury is the scratch on her cheek, which stopped bleeding ages ago. 

“What the hell happened to you, Charlie?” Miles insists, taking the rabbit from her and holding her wrists in his hands, urging her to make eye contact. She looks right through him, wincing at his hands on the tender skin where the dead-eyed man had held her.

“I handled it,” she says, pulling away. Miles lets her go, but she can feel his eyes following her as she moves toward the stream. She wants to wash her face, get the blood out of her pores before she collapses for the night. By the time she’s returned, Monroe is roasting the squirrel over the fire, and without a word he passes her a biscuit. They don’t speak, though she can see that Miles wants to. She wonders what’s stopping him, but doesn’t question it. She sits, thankful for the food, for the warmth, but mostly for the silence.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but I also don't know how to get it to where I want it to be... It'll do.

After that first night outside of Dallas, Charlie is virtually unrecognisable. She wasn’t the chattiest person to begin with, but this is different. She’s silent, and the longing for adventure behind her eyes has vanished. Bass doesn’t know what happened in that forest, but it changed her. He doesn’t push her, knowing that talking about it when she isn’t ready won’t do her any good, but the waiting is hard. Even if she wanted to talk about it, she wouldn’t turn to him. 

Miles whispers worriedly when he thinks Charlie can’t hear, even considering taking her all the way back to Willoughby in hopes that her mother can help her. Bass talks him out of that idea quickly, reminding Miles that Rachel is hardly the best person to turn to for help after a trauma. He’s convinced that turning back would only make things worse. Besides, they need Charlie now as much as she needs them.

Six days later, they cross the border into the Plains Nation. Charlie still barely speaks to them, and Miles is becoming increasingly agitated and restless. Bass’s eyes never stop moving, scanning their vicinity for the smallest hint of a threat. He feels like he’s being watched, like someone is out there, but he tells himself that it’s not paranoia when the next person you see very likely will kill you. 

In a way, the Plains Nation isn’t as dangerous as it once was. The Patriots took out many of the clans in an attempt to weaken the nation, but the ones that remained were fiercer than ever. The small towns they’d passed through in northern Oklahoma had complained of the constant fear of raids from clans along the border. The name Bass had heard the most during their travels was the Hawthorne clan, led by someone called Spencer Hawthorne. There were others – the Cobb tribe, the Valenzuela clan, the Lowery clan, to name a few – but the Hawthorne clan seemed the most powerful, and thus the one to hit first.

Miles hadn’t liked their plan when Bass and Charlie had shared it with him. He’d yelled, telling Charlie that she was a stupid little girl who needed to learn how to listen to orders before making up her own plans, then he turned on Bass. He’d been furious, which Bass had expected, insisting that their plan would fail, getting them all killed before they’d downed a single clansman. But eventually, as they both knew he would, he’d seen the merits of the plan. Reluctantly.

It hadn’t taken much effort to find the Hawthorne encampment after they’d crossed into Kansas. The clan congregated by the shore of a vast blue lake, just outside of a long-abandoned city, a mass of tents and hastily thrown together structures that seemed to lean on and support one another.

Bass, Miles, and Charlie took turns passing a pair of binoculars between them, peering down at the war clan. They looked harmless enough at first, just a rough village of families going about their business, feeding their children, watering their livestock. But upon looking closer, it was clear that these people were prepared for constant battle – they were armed to the teeth, and even the smallest children trained for hours every day.

It was hard to make out the leader of the clan, as no one seemed to answer to any one person in particular, but it didn’t really matter. 

“I don’t know if we should do this,” Miles says, passing the binoculars to Charlie. Instead of looking through them, she directs her gaze toward her uncle.

“I’m going whether you like it or not. It’ll work. Trust me,” she says. It’s the most she’s spoken in days. Miles is worried about her, about her ability to think clearly. She still won’t tell them what happened, and Bass is starting to think she never will. 

“Trust you? Yeah, you two have been so trustworthy lately. Besides, you’re a kid, not a soldier.” Bass tries to tamp down the anger that rises in him at the mention of his supposed untrustworthiness. He wants to punch Miles in the face. Show him untrustworthy.

“When have I _ever_ given you a reason not to trust me?” Charlie is nearly spitting her words in Miles’ face.

“How can I when you’ve been practically catatonic the last few days? I don’t know what the hell you’ll do next. You're unpredictable.”

Charlie’s eyes are steely and determined. She’s unshaken by Miles’ words. Bass wasn’t there after the tower, but he’s heard bits and pieces, enough to know that Rachel fell apart in the aftermath, enough to know that when Miles looks at Charlie all he sees is Rachel. He’s seen the fear taking hold in Miles for the past few days, and he’s been waiting for it to come to its inevitable head.

“Yeah, and you're just the king of communication,” Charlie says. Her voice is lower than before, raspy from prolonged silence. “I don't want to talk to you about something that is none of your goddamn business and suddenly it's a problem. What about all those months when it was all ‘Rachel this’ and ‘Rachel that,’ you sure didn't care then. I needed you Miles, and I was _invisible_. I’m not my mom. I don’t need you to take care of me anymore.”

“Yeah, well it’s my job. It doesn’t matter if you need me or not, you’re stuck with me.” Bass feels like he’s intruding, like he’s not supposed to hear any of this. They’re family in a way that is completely beyond his comprehension.

He's not really one to judge when it comes to dysfunctional relationships, but he’s noticed the tension between Miles and Charlie since they left Willoughby. There’s a guardedness there that disturbs him. 

“Taking care of me is not your job. I can take care of myself.” But anyone can see that it’s not true. She needs help; even Bass, crazy General Monroe still living deep inside of him, can see that. She’s haunted by something, losing herself in bad memories.

With an exasperated sigh, Miles stands and paces away, disappearing under the cover of a dense forest, leaving Charlie and Bass sitting on the cliff overlooking the water. Charlie starts to get up, making to follow Miles, but Bass puts a hand out to stop her.

“Give him a minute. He’ll cool down,” he says, and she settles back down next to him. Without Miles’ presence, she somehow feels closer than she did a minute ago.

“You know, you can tell me what happened. Whatever it was, I’m sure I’ve done worse.” He can’t look at her while he says it, knowing how true it is. He’s done a lot of awful things in the past fifteen years. Unforgiveable things.

“He says he wants to protect me, but he always fucking leaves. The minute things get hard, he walks away,” she says softly, and Bass knows exactly what she means.

“Better than trying to kill you in your sleep,” he says under his breath. Charlie lets out a startled laugh, and he looks up at her. She never fails to confound him.

“Yeah, it could be worse,” she says. “He just – why would I tell him shit? It doesn’t matter, as long as I can do my job.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, kid. But I have a feeling I’m the last person you’re looking to emulate.” Charlie groans. She doesn’t say anything, and neither does he, as they sit staring out at the clear water. Bass spots a disturbance of the lake, a fish jumping and plummeting back into the deep. The sun is hidden behind a screen of clouds and it’s the first time Bass has needed his jacket for warmth in months.

“They were bandits, I guess.” Her voice is quiet, tentative like she’s not sure how to get the words out. “They grabbed me when I was cleaning the meat. They wanted me to take them to you and Miles. I think they just wanted our food.” She pauses.

“Why didn’t you?” Bass asks, hoping to urge her on. 

“I thought I could handle it. I did handle it.”

“How many were there?”

“Just three. I’ve been in worse situations. You could kill three people with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back,” she says.

“You clearly overestimate my skills. I’m good, but even I’m not invincible.” She’s probably right, he’s been in worse situations, but even Bass is capable of tact on occasion. He knows that that’s not what she needs to hear.

“Does it get easier?” Their eyes meet, and hers are swollen and rimmed with red. He can see that she’s on the edge of tears, and he doesn’t mind. He’s always been terrified of crying women, but this is different. This is Charlie. “Killing people. Do you ever stop caring?”

Bass opens his mouth to answer, but then she’s continuing. “Look who I’m asking.” Her tone has shifted, turned bitter and jaded. “You probably never cared to begin with. You killed so many people, innocent children. Do you at least regret any of it?”

His insides harden at her words, drawing inward whatever emotions he might have let leak. “You weren’t there, Charlie. I did what I had to.” Her eyes are full of a hatred that he hasn’t seen in her in a long time, and it hurts more than he thought possible. He knew that she’d never like him, they’d never be friends, but he’d thought they were past this. 

“I never wanted any of that. Miles and I – I built the republic to help people.” His voice is desperate and defensive, bordering on angry and he works to reel himself in. “You’re right. I did kill a lot of people. I’ll probably kill a lot more. But it’s never easy. You don’t suddenly stop feeling. You just remind yourself that it’s you or them. And, the other night… I’m really glad it was them.”

She tears her eyes away from his, and he can see the rage begin to die down. “There was a woman and two men. One of them was a kid, really. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen, and he was skin and bones,” she says, looking out over the water. “He was too weak to pull back the string on my crossbow, and I killed him. He couldn’t have hurt me, but I killed him. Didn’t even think about it, I just did it.”

“You did what you had to do. You don’t need to feel bad about it.”

“Don’t you get it?” She tucks her knees up to her chest. “That’s the problem. I’ve done my fair share of killing, but it never felt like that before. I didn’t feel bad about it. I liked it. I _liked_ it, Bass. I’m a monster.” 

She’s crying in earnest now, and Bass doesn’t know quite how to react. It’s been so long since the last time anyone needed comforting in front of him that he doesn’t really remember proper protocol for this. He reaches an arm out tentatively, hoping that he isn’t about to make it all worse, and drapes it around her shoulders. She stiffens as the weight of his arm settles over her, and Bass thinks that she’ll bolt, that she’ll regret opening up to him, but she doesn’t. She relaxes against him, and she cries.

“It’s okay to like it. It doesn’t make you a monster, Charlie. Trust me, none of us would be alive if we didn’t, at least a little bit,” he says, his voice deep but soft.

“I felt him,” she whispers, her voice breaking over her words. “Jason. She was strangling me, and for a second it was him and I didn’t fight back. I let her strangle me.”

Bass doesn’t know what else to say, so he says nothing. He hopes that just being there, just holding her until her tears subside, reminding her that she’s not alone, can be enough.

 

It isn’t until later that evening, when they’re putting their plan into action, that Bass realises that Charlie didn’t call him Monroe. Bass and Miles hang back, watching from afar as Charlie approaches the Hawthorne camp. He can hear her boots crunching the dry grass as she walks, birds singing in the trees overhead.

He must have misheard, he tells himself, because Charlie doesn’t call him Bass. He’s never been Bass to Charlie, and he never will be. But he can hear her voice in his head, the way the word sounds in her mouth, silky and warm and right. He couldn’t have imagined that.

His eyes follow her across the clearing as she trudges into view of the Hawthorne guards. He hears shouting and sees guns raised in her direction, and his heart leaps in his chest as she lowers her weapon and raises her hands into the air in surrender. _Fuck._


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a little longer to upload! Uni started back up this week so I've been pretty busy & have had less writing time. This chapter was also really difficult for me to write for some reason.

The camp is bigger in person than it had seemed from the cliff top. Charlie’s hands are bound behind her and she’s been stripped of her weapons, but she tries to draw on as much composure as she can as a pair of guards escort her through the maze-like camp. She pays close attention to the turns they take, mapping out the tent city in her mind’s eye, but it’s dark and the layout of the camp is confusing. Within a few minutes she has to admit that she’s lost.

The men flanking her were called over by the guards outside of the camp who apprehended Charlie. She’d played dumb, claiming to have ventured too far whilst hunting, the same excuse she’d used so long ago when she and Miles had ‘rescued’ Nora. It feels like a lifetime has passed since that day – she remembers it vividly, but like it happened to someone else. That day was the first time she’d killed another person. She’d been so upset. Now look at her.

She’s a little bit insulted that they believe her cover story, but it makes things so much easier for her. The more they underestimate her, the better. They see the long sun-lightened hair and the blue eyes framed by long dark lashes, and they never think that she's someone worth worrying about. 

Still, they march her through the camp like a prisoner. She’s anticipating meeting Spencer Hawthorne in person, and she wonders if it will be anything like her first encounter with Duncan Page. Duncan is the only example of a war clan leader Charlie has, and though they’d started out rocky (Charlie still doesn’t regret pulling the gun on Duncan. She’d deserved it), they’d come to a semblance of mutual respect. Charlie couldn’t imagine one could lead a war clan without possessing some impressive qualities, and Duncan had come through when it was most necessary. She doesn't expect to come to the same kind of understanding this time.

She’s jerked to a stop, stumbling over her own feet. The tent before her looks just like all of the others, though perhaps a bit larger than most. The taller of her guards steps inside, leaving the other to watch Charlie. Every inch of skin visible on the remaining guard save his face, is covered in tattoos. He looks to be in his forties, and Charlie wonders whether he’d been inked up before or after the power went out. For his sake, she hopes that it was before the blackout. Without access to proper medicine or sterilization, tattoos aren’t as safe as they once were. 

She’d had a friend in Sylvania Estates, a young woman a few years older than herself, who’d decided to tattoo herself. They hadn’t been close, but Charlie had watched Amy die, trying to help her stave off the infection that spread through her body. Maggie had said that it was a staph infection, that it had likely been due to bad ink, and that it had migrated into Amy’s bloodstream. Amy’s mistake had been enough to deter Charlie from ever wanting tattoos of her own, no matter how safe anyone told her it was.

When the first guard returns, he exchanges a few muffled words with the tattooed man, then they motion for her to enter the tent. She lifts the flap that serves as a doorway, stepping inside. She’s immediately hit by the immense, heavy heat within the tent. She sucks at the air, her lungs empty, her skin clammy with sweat already.

Despite the heat, there are a surprising number of people in the tent. She stands tall, feigning confidence, and scans the room for a man who might be Spencer Hawthorne. Her unasked question is answered when a man steps toward her. He’s dressed much like all of the other men she’s seen – rough-spun homemade shirt under a jacket far too heavy for the temperature, a well-worn pair of jeans, the kind that can’t be made new post-Blackout. His hair is cropped close to his head, too close for Charlie to identify his hair colour, and his cheeks are ruddy, giving him a youthful appearance. He strikes Charlie as too young to be the leader of a well-established war clan, and she second guesses her identification of him, but when he opens his mouth he confirms her suspicions.

“I’ve been told you were picked up hunting outside the camp,” he says, holding out a hand. Charlie merely stares at it for a moment, then decides that it’s safe to shake. “Welcome to the Hawthorne tribe. Name’s Spencer. And you are?”

Charlie says nothing, dropping his cold, clammy hand after a cursory shake.

“Not so talkative, are we?” Hawthorne steps back, contemplating her. She feels dirty as his eyes roam over her body. She fights the urge to pull her jacket tight over her chest, covering herself. Covering up won’t help her, much as she hates to think about it. Sometimes being a woman in post-blackout North America is less than enjoyable.

“You’re pretty,” Hawthorne says, more predatory than complimentary, and Charlie chews on her lip to distract herself from how uncomfortable this is making her. Even if she wanted to, it’s too late to back down now. She can’t afford to fail, especially because failing would just prove Miles right. That’s the last thing she wants right now.

“Thanks,” she says, locking her eyes on his and putting all of her effort into communicating a kind of heat completely unrelated to that hanging in the tent’s atmosphere. “You’re not bad yourself.” Her thoughts flit back to the one night stands in the bars months ago, and she pretends that this is just another of those. He’s nothing, just another man for Charlie Matheson to chew up and spit out. She’s more than capable of that.

His mouth thins out, the corners turning up in a sarcastic smile that Charlie doesn’t trust.

“I like this one,” he announces, looking out over his people like he’s holding court. Charlie feels every person in the room looking at her, judging her. She tries not to care. In an hour, it won’t matter. 

Hawthorne steps closer, lifting a hand to run a menacing finger over her lower lip. She braces herself against the shiver that overtakes her, but his smile broadens and she knows he noticed. She looks up at him, doing her best impression of a terrified doe-eyed virgin. The blue of his eyes reminds her of Monroe, of the way he’d looked at her in Philly.

Those eyes had been wholly different that afternoon, sitting on the cliff overlooking the Hawthorne camp, and she pushes that memory aside. She can’t think about that right now. She can’t think of the way he looked at her, ever. Charlie liked it better when Monroe looked at her like she was a piece of meat he wanted to tear apart. Whatever that change in his eyes, in his tone, it’s fucking terrifying.

Turning from her, Hawthorne addresses the tattooed guard, “Take her to my tent. We'll have a good chat later. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he says with an exaggerated wink.

Charlie fights against the guard, who grabs her by the arm and pulls her away. It’s an act; she can’t let it look too easy, like she isn’t somewhat distressed by the idea of being taken away for whatever depravities Spencer Hawthorne has planned for her. She thinks of the night in New Vegas, when she’d been captured by Gould and locked to a bed in in a dirty trailer. If she could get out of that unscathed, she’ll be fine tonight. At least, that’s the mantra running on a constant loop through her head.

Outside of the tent, the man’s grip slackens slightly. Charlie ceases struggling and looks up at him, confused. He ignores her, walking determinedly and pushing Charlie along at a brisk clip, but she can see dark shadows in his eyes.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asks, and it’s the first time he’s spoken to her since she arrived. His voice is pleasant and low, slightly accented though not British like Maggie.

“Emily,” she lies.

“I’m sorry that I have to do this, Emily. I have a kid your age, and I’d kill anyone who even looked at her that way. But I have to follow orders.” They duck inside another tent, and the fire inside is burning low, almost extinguished. The man leads Charlie toward the mattress laying on the ground across from the entrance and ties her hands behind her back with a piece of corded rope. “Militia, huh? Must’ve enlisted young,” he remarks, noting her brand.

“Conscripted. Like you said, we do what we have to do. Orders are orders,” she says. “Do you – would you tell me your name?” Her voice wavers.

He finishes tying a series of complicated but somewhat loose knots and stands back from her, nodding sympathetically. His eyes glisten in the dim light of the fire.

“Richard,” he says quietly, like he’s telling her a well-kept secret. “Rick.”

A tear trickles down Charlie’s cheek, and she hopes that he thinks it’s out of fear and not in shock that he’s being so strangely kind to her. Strangers don’t usually show kindness to Charlie – more often, they try to kill her.

And then he’s gone, and she’s stuck with nothing but her own thoughts for company. She squints, trying to see through the limited light, and wishes that he’d thought to build the fire up a bit before leaving. There aren’t any real weapons in the tent, but she hadn’t been counting on the idea that there would be. She’s a Matheson, and Mathesons don’t rely on weapons to kill.

It feels like hours pass sitting on the lumpy mattress, springs digging into her no matter how she shifts her weight, hours during which she sifts through all of the loathsome thoughts that haunt her every waking moment. She thinks of her mom, safe back in Willoughby assisting her grandpa in his clinic. Charlie and Rachel aren’t good with goodbyes, and though Charlie doesn’t regret not telling her mother that she was leaving, she does miss her in a strange way. Not with that ache that gnaws away at her insides, the way she misses Danny and her dad, but in a small, quiet way. Charlie will never understand why Rachel did the things she did, but she can see that her mother has been trying to make amends, in her own way.

She thinks of Aaron and Priscilla, of her grandfather, of Connor, even of Neville. She wonders what happened to him, though she’s glad to be free of him. Connor had mentioned him only once, when he’d first come back to Willoughby. He’d said something about Neville talking to himself, wanting Connor to walk to some town in Idaho with him. When Connor had left him, he’d been fanatical, crazed, convinced that he was speaking to his wife and son when there was no one there but him. Her heart wrenches for him; she’s done her fair share of grieving. She remembers the feeling of his gun against her temple, hearing the click of the trigger being pulled and the anticipatory rush of believing that it was the end. She’d been ready for it to be the end. At least, she’d thought so.

Her thoughts meander to that strange moment on the cliff that afternoon, Monroe’s arm tucked around her as she sobbed uncontrollably. Charlie tries to remember the last time she cried, but it was too long ago. Has she cried since the day she killed Jason? She remembers wetness on her cheeks, clutching his body and hoping so hard for it all to be a mistake, a misunderstanding, but it has all blurred together in her mind like a fever dream. She can’t make sense of it anymore. For all she’s tried to convince herself that it was the Patriots who killed Jason, she can’t deny it was she who pulled the trigger. His blood is unequivocally on her hands. She’ll never be able to forget that.

And maybe what Monroe said is true. Maybe getting caught in the rush of killing is the key to survival, but maybe not. He’s changed, yes – even Charlie can’t deny that – but she can’t shake the memory of the man he was. The man she met in Philadelphia, who would have killed her and Danny without thinking twice. He had been merciless; she’s heard all of the stories of his reign of terror, seen what he’s capable of firsthand. Yet when he’d looked at her earlier… There had been a softness, a tenderness in his eyes that shocked and scared her. That version of the man is somehow more frightening to Charlie than President Monroe ever had been.

She meant what she said to Miles. He spent months preoccupied with Rachel and Monroe, and there just hadn’t been room for Charlie in his life since the moment she returned to Willoughby. Maybe he hadn’t noticed it, but he’d changed. They all had. She’s not a child or a soldier. These days, she’s a warrior.

The truth is, she still can’t quite believe she’s alive. She had so expected to die fighting the Patriots that she doesn’t know what to do now that she’s made it through to the other side. All of the hope within her withered and died between the Tower and Willoughby, and she’s tried to cobble together a life together that just doesn’t fit. And maybe, if she’s lucky, there is something out here that can make her feel whole again.

She is finally jerked back into reality when the door flap is tugged open unceremoniously and Hawthorne walks in. Charlie stiffens, her shoulders aching from the immobility of her arms behind her back. 

“Ready to tell me your name?” He crosses the room to tend to the dying fire without a glance in Charlie’s direction. She squirms and the mattress creaks under her.

“It’s Emily.” Her voice is high and scared, and it’s only half an act. “Please, let me go. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want to go home.”

“I’m sure you do. And maybe, if you’re good, I’ll send you home in one piece. But not tonight.” Hawthorne stalks across the room until he’s standing over Charlie, peering down at her. Her instinct is to stare up, defiant and unafraid, but she pushes that down. She’s playing a role, and she’s not about to screw it up. 

“Please. I don’t want any trouble, I promise.”

“Well it’s too late for that. I don’t take well to trespassers.” He skims a hand across her collarbone and her eyes grow wet, unbidden tears pressing forth. His touch makes her skin crawl like his fingers are tiny venomous snakes slithering over her body. She shrinks back as his hand drags up, up her neck to her cheek. He cups her cheek, looking at her with glazed over eyes, like she’s someone else, like he cares about her. And then the strange glint in his eyes is gone, and in its place is simple rage and lust. Charlie stifles a laugh. Men are so fucking predictable.

She closes her eyes, the fear pretend but the revulsion completely real. She knew this was going to happen, it was part of the plan. She’d counted on it - but she hadn’t anticipated how horrible it would make her feel. Her heart races and if she was anyone else, it would be out of terror. But she’s Charlie Matheson, and she’s not afraid of anything. Not anymore.

She’s a monster, she tells herself numbly, and monsters aren’t scared of lesser monsters.

When she opens her eyes his pants are on the floor and though she scans the floor she can’t find where he put his shirt. She shudders as he comes toward her, pushing her back onto the bed. Her hands still tied behind her, she lets out a low sound of pain and he pulls back. His eyes hold neither kindness nor malice, just a primal longing. 

“Can you - I’ll do what you want, I just… Can you untie my hands? I’ll - I want to make it good for you,” she whimpers, disgusting herself. But to her surprise it works, and he does what she asks, his hands closing around her, pulling her back into a seated position, deftly untying the knot Rick had so carefully made. Her hands free, she places one on his bare chest, feeling the muscles shift under his skin. He’d be kind of attractive, she thinks, if he wasn’t a rapist asshole.

She lets him kiss her and the tears are biting at her eyes now. She’s flooded with shame that she doesn’t want to feel. She’s not doing anything wrong, she reminds herself. She’s doing what she came here to do. She’s playing along out of self-preservation. Yes, she’ll give him what he wants - until she won’t.

Her eyes are open as he kisses her, his tongue probing around in her mouth like a wet, slimy eel, and she scans the room, hoping he’ll have left a weapon within reach. She can get by without one, but she’d like one anyway. Killing is a hell of a lot easier with a real weapon. Her eye is caught by the glint of metal in the pool of Hawthorne’s discarded pants, and she hopes that what she’s seeing is a knife or a sword of some sort, not just a slightly shiny belt buckle. She pretends to enjoy the kiss, though she’s not sure whether he’s the kind of man who prefers the struggles of the unwilling, and runs her hand up and down his bare back. The hair stands on end, and she takes that as a sign that what she’s doing pleases him, so she deepens the kiss and shifts into his lap, straddling him and pushing him down on the mattress. His eyes flicker open in alarm, confused by her actions, but she shakes her head and grinds herself against the hardness of his crotch, and his eyes close again as he lets out a low moan. She can feel him forgetting that she’s his captive, that she doesn’t want this like he does.

The fact that a man this fucking gullible can lead a war clan is somehow inspiring to Charlie.

Moving as quickly as she can, she pulls herself to her feet at the side of the bed and slams her fist down on his crotch. This time the moan he lets loose is decidedly not one of pleasure, and as he clutches his bruising manhood, Charlie is clutching the knife from his pants, thanking whatever god might be out there that it wasn’t a damn belt buckle. Without a word or a second of hesitation she is plunging it into his chest, just where Miles told her to. It slides into his chest like butter, Charlie thinks, like it belongs there. Like it’s found it’s home. And then she’s pulling it out and he’s bleeding out on the bare mattress. Her hand reaches for his mouth, her palm pressing down to stifle any cries he might let out. There’s no rescue for Spencer Hawthorne. Not tonight. Not ever again.

Her heartbeat is out of control and her cheeks are flushed with the thrill of the moment, and it’s nothing like the night outside of Dallas, but it’s the same all at once. Not an ounce of remorse runs through her, and as she stands over him a malicious grin spreads across her lips. The blood is beginning to slow and he can barely keep his eyes open. He’s nearing death, and she’s glad for it. Men like this deserve to die, deserve to endure the pain of a slow death. His eyes plead with her as he dies, and she feels nothing but an overwhelming sense of calm. 

“If you’re going to tie someone up, you should really think twice before untying them,” she whispers, leaning close to speak directly into his ear. She wants him to know that she is better than him. That no matter what she does, she will always be better than him.

She feels lighter than she has in days. She has a purpose here, something to live for, at least for today. She hears the tinny, strained laughter before she feels it, before she realises that it’s coming from her. Monroe was right, in a way. It is okay to like it. She can’t deny the way she feels anymore – she’s decided not to run from it anymore. But he’s wrong, too. How can a man who constantly denies the monster inside him possibly understand what it is to embrace it? The girl who walked out of Sylvania Estates, headstrong and held together by the hope that she could rescue her brother, that there were good people out there, had died piece by shattered piece with Maggie, with Danny, with Nora. By the time she held Jason close as he died in her arms, all that remained was a girl who was hardened, fierce. And Charlie is done hating the girl she’s become. There’s no turning back now, no returning to the girl she once was.

 _Charlie Matheson_ , she thinks, a gleeful shiver running up her spine, _you’re a motherfucking monster._


	9. Chapter 9

It’s harder than Bass expected, leaving Charlie behind in Kansas while he and Miles travel back into Oklahoma in hopes of learning more about the innermost workings of the war clans of the Plains Nation. It was part of their plan and he knew it wouldn’t be easy, but leaving her alone there, unprotected, scares Bass more than he’d like to admit. He can see when he looks at his friend that Miles feels the same. They’re worried, and Bass tells himself that he shouldn’t, that Charlie is strong and can do whatever she sets herself to, but he can’t stop the images of her, dead or worse, from creeping into his mind.

So he keeps busy, talking to locals and swallowing down the truly disgusting rotgut that is the only alcohol on offer in this tiny, Podunk town. It does the job, and soon his head is swimming, his balance off-kilter, and he’s not thinking about Charlie anymore. If he was, he’d feel guilty for getting drunk while she’s doing the work that should have been up to he and Miles. It was easier to let other people kill for him when he didn’t care about them. 

They’re sat around a narrow kitchen table, flickering candles the only light illuminating the small room. After spending a few hours approaching strangers on the streets of Copan in hopes of finding some key piece of information to help direct them in their annihilation of the most threatening plains tribes, Bass and Miles fell into conversation with a strong-tongued man and his wife, who had lost their children the last time a war clan had come through Copan. It had only been a few weeks ago, and though they spoke candidly it was clear that it was a difficult subject to broach.

“Right out of our backyard,” Adele says, her long dark hair falling into her face. “One minute they were there, the next they were gone.”

“I just don’t understand why,” her husband Paul continues. “What could they possibly want with a pair of little kids?”

Bass knows better than to explain any of the myriad possibilities that the children might have been taken. The children are young enough that Bass thinks it likely that they may eventually be adopted into the clan itself, raised to be warriors in their own right. If they’re lucky. If not, he doesn’t want to think about what kind of lives they’ll have, if they live at all.

Miles reassures the distraught parents that their children are safe, that the war tribes don’t usually hurt children, but they all understand that he is lying. He doesn’t tell the couple about their plans, about the fact that Charlie is in that camp right now, doing god knows what to bring them down around her. Even despite his best efforts to drink her out of his mind, Bass’s thoughts lead straight back to her. 

He imagines her fighting a spectre of a man, unable to conjure an image of the Hawthorne clan’s leader, and he doesn’t know why but she’s wielding a sword, and good god does she know how to use it. She dances around him effortlessly, pushing him back and back and back, finally disarming him altogether. And suddenly the ghost-man is him, and she’s holding the sword to his throat, but she doesn’t kill him. Instead, she leans forward, her clear blue eyes holding his, and he can taste her hot sweet breath over his mouth and her lips don’t touch his but they’re close enough that it almost doesn’t matter. He feels himself hardening in his pants and shifts in his seat, remembering that it’s all in his head and that this is absolutely not the time and place to be fantasizing about Charlotte Matheson.

But no one seems to have noticed any change in his behaviour – the conversation has shifted without him, and Miles is now asking the couple about any other clans that might have been threatening the area, or any other towns that have been hit recently.

Bass’s blood is still rushing from his brain down below his belt, and the glasses of rotgut he’s put back don’t help his ability to pay attention to what Adele and Paul have to say. He can only hope that Miles is having a better time keeping track, but he highly doubts Miles is experiencing the same level of distraction.

“We don’t get much by way of communication from other towns, but we’ve had a few travellers coming through, telling stories of towns that have been torn to pieces by the Plains Nation, every man, woman and child slaughtered in cold blood. It’s awful stuff.” Paul says, chewing on a piece of dried meat. He speaks slowly, methodically, like every word is a labour. 

“But it can’t all be the work of one clan, right? Logistically, they can’t be everywhere at once.”

“I’ve heard a few names here and there, but nothing concrete. It’s a quiet town for the most part. We try to keep to our own. You’re the only people we’ve seen since the Hawthornes were here last. You seem like nice men, trustworthy, but we don’t always take too kindly to strangers. Been burned one too many times.”

“Haven’t we all.” Bass drawls. If only Paul had seen them a year ago – he wouldn’t think they were nice, trustworthy men if he knew who they really were.

“We have a friend who’s been taken by the Hawthorne clan,” Miles says. “We’re going to get her back. We’ll try to find your kids, too.”

Paul laughs and Adele looks up from the puzzle she’s been working on. Bass can’t help noticing that half the pieces are missing. 

“We’re never going to see our babies again,” Adele says quietly. “And if you go looking for trouble, you’ll never be seen again either.”

She lapses back into silence, nursing her coffee mug filled with murky alcohol. Bass decides that now is a good time to change the subject.

“You wouldn’t have heard any news from the Republic, have you?” He’s not optimistic, but he’s curious. Last he heard, the Republic was a ruin, gone to complete shit in the aftermath of the bomb hitting Philly. Miles shoots him a piercing glare, which Bass resolutely ignores.

“Not lately, but we had a pair of former militia soldiers through here a few weeks back. Knew them by those damn brands – what kind of animal brands his army like cattle? Anyway, they said there was nothing there, that it was as desolate as the Wastelands. No order, no structure. Just a free-for-all, like it was fifteen years ago when the lights first went off. Worse even,” Paul answers, confirming all of Bass’s fears.

He’d tried so hard to do the right thing with the Republic. To help people who needed guidance, and look what good it had done. Now they were back where they started, with the addition of nuclear fallout to reckon with. He feels responsible, but he still wants to help, to heal the remnants of his nation. He’d done something, and it hadn’t been perfect but it had kept people fed and clothed, hadn’t it? He wanted to keep people safe. That was harder than it looked. He hadn’t realised that he needed to protect people from himself, but he sees that now.

The shadows lining the room lengthen as Bass drinks, losing track of time. The room is illuminated by a pair of flickering homemade beeswax candles that look like they won’t make it through the night. Adele puts her puzzle away on a low shelf, then she and her husband retire to bed, insisting that their guests stay the night and setting them up with thin blankets on their couches, leaving Bass and Miles at the their kitchen table. They drink in silence, both lost in their own thoughts, unable to share with one another.

Determined as he is, Bass can’t steer his mind clear of her for long. He should be there, fighting beside her – they both should. But regardless of his impulse to protect her, he respects their plan. They’d spent days ironing it out, both before and after telling Miles, and she was solid in her certainty that she could pull it off. Yes, they could have taken the clan in another way, as Miles had immediately demanded, but the only alternatives involved far more bloodshed. None of them could see the sense in killing the people they wanted allied with them. Besides, the odds of not dying in the process weren’t in their favour.

He’s still concerned about the things she said to him on the cliff. Maybe he should have stopped her, told her to wait another day or two before acting. But no, Charlie would never have listened to that. Her words echo in his head, “I’m a monster,” over and over again, haunting him. The idea of Charlie – Charlie! – seeing herself as a monster would be laughable if it didn’t frighten him so much. If he hadn’t seen the darkness in her eyes, the way she carried an invisible weight that was so familiar to him. He could see echoes of his own pain in her. The idea of someone causing Charlie that kind of pain urged in Bass a visceral urge to kill and maim anyone responsible. Even himself. Especially himself. Because if Charlie saw herself as a monster, what kind of evilness did she see in him?

Setting the disturbing thought aside, he opens his mouth to say something to Miles, just so that he doesn’t have to sit in the heavy silence anymore, but when he sees the way Miles is glaring at him over his dirty glass, he thinks better of it. The resentment in Miles’ eyes cuts Bass. He hadn’t been expecting that, but he supposes he should have. It hurts, but the hurt quickly transforms into anger. How can someone set aside thirty years of friendship – more than friendship, _brotherhood_ – aside so easily?

They haven’t spoken about the argument Bass overheard that afternoon, but it lingers in the air between them. The words were unspoken for a long time, but they’re out there now - no matter what Bass does, Miles will never fully trust him again. It hurts every time he thinks about it, like his heart is being ripped out of his chest again and again. 

“You should just kill me already,” Bass slurs, and Miles looks up at him in drunken awe. Bass isn’t entirely sure where he’s going with this, but it feels good to get things out there anyway, so he continues. “You clearly want to, so just get it over with you asshole. Put me out of my damn misery.”

“I’m sure the war clans will do it for me sooner or later. I don’t want your blood on my hands.” Miles slumps against the table, his head propped up by his arms.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you.” Bass leans back in his chair, tipping it slightly to teeter on two of the legs. He leans too far, and just manages to catch himself and plant all four of his chair legs back on the ground before he would have plummeted backward. “What is your problem?”

He doesn’t expect a reply, not from Miles, but Miles has never liked doing what’s expected of him.

“You’re my problem. You’re all of our problem. Charlie’s probably dead right now thanks to you. You’re a curse, Bass,” he hisses, leaning across the table toward Bass, like he really wants to see the impact of his words.

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” Bass takes another long swig of his drink, the alcohol burning down his throat a reminder of his reality. “Charlie’s not dead. And even if she was, I don’t remember forcing her to do anything she didn’t volunteer to. Whatever happens tonight, you can’t blame me this time.”

“Right. Just like I can’t blame you for Ben and Danny and Nora.”

“I wasn’t even there, Miles. I never wanted any of them to die.”

“And if it wasn’t for your damn Republic, none of them would have,” Miles spits. He’s omitting the parts of the story he doesn’t like, just like he has for the past seven years, and Bass has had enough.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry? I never even wanted the Republic and you know it! I did it for you,” Bass says between clenched teeth.

“Might’ve believed that if you hadn’t decided to go all Dynasty with your cocky asshole of an offspring. Never should have told you where he was…” Miles leans back in his chair, satisfaction spreading across his face. He’s always known just how to hit Bass where it hurts. “You’re a power hungry bastard and you know it.”

Bass tries to bite his tongue, to keep his temper in check, but the words come out loud and unbidden, “You think I’d be here if I wanted the damn Republic back? I could have walked away a long time ago. You sure as hell would have in my shoes, but that’s always been your specialty hasn’t it?”

Miles doesn’t reply, just stares across the table like Bass is a ghost that only he can see, a figment of his imagination. He tears his eyes away, lifting his glass and swallowing the dregs of his drink, his hand trembling visibly clutching the empty tumbler.

“What is it going to take for you to trust me again? I’m not your enemy, Miles. I’m your brother, damn it. Your _brother_.” Bass stands, pacing across the room to put his empty cup on the counter to be washed in the morning. He’s getting belligerent, saying things he doesn’t want to. He’s had too much to drink and it’s time to call it a night, but Miles clearly hasn’t received that memo.

“You killed my brother. You’re no family to me,” Miles spits, and when Bass turns back toward him he can feel hot tears pressing against his eyes. He’d hoped they were over this. After everything…

“I gave up my kid for you,” he says, his voice lilting up at the end like a question. It doesn’t matter. He’d hoped that Miles agreeing to this mission meant something, meant that they could work past whatever issues laid between them, but maybe not. Nothing he says, nothing he does, is going to convince Miles that he can be trusted again. And that's not Bass's fault. If Miles wanted to forgive him, he would have by now. He never imagined that he'd be on the receiving end of one of Miles' lifelong grudges, but here he is.

Fuck him, Bass thinks. He’s been working so hard for Miles’ forgiveness, but why should he even bother? If anything, he’s the one who’s owed an apology. Miles saw what was happening to Bass after Shelley died, and did he try to help? No, he held a fucking gun to his head, and when he couldn’t pull the trigger he fled. Knowing everything he did, about Bass’s parents and his sisters and Shelley and the baby, all of the things he’d loved and lost, and Miles had chosen to abandon him. To leave him completely adrift, everything he’d done since the blackout completely worthless. Fuck him. 

A tear rolls down Bass’s cheek, and he wipes it away hurriedly before announcing coldly that he’s going to bed. They’ll go back north in the morning, find Charlie and take their next steps with the Hawthorne clan, forget this drunken conversation ever happened. They’ll go back to whatever tense alliance they’ve been under since the day Charlie dragged Miles to him outside of Willoughby. There will be no forgiveness here, not tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there was supposed to be closure between Bass and Miles in this chapter, but that clearly didn't happen. They just can't work through their shit, can they?
> 
> Comments are always so incredibly appreciated, and I'm so grateful to everyone who's been reading this (especially since Bass and Charlie STILL HAVEN'T HAPPENED).


	10. Chapter 10

The blood has been washed away, the body disposed of, and though Charlie has earned her position as leader of the clan, but there is backlash. The ways of the war clans dictate that the person who defeats the current lead is entitled to take their place at the head of the clan, but that doesn’t mean the clan has to cede to their will. Killing Spencer Hawthorne was the easy part – getting the clan to respect and listen to her, that will prove more difficult.

She makes it through the night, though the men who discovered her over Hawthorne’s dead, naked body were less than welcoming. One of them had tried to kill her, but Charlie had ended that with the threat of a knife in his neck, or worse. She might have said something about removing his testicles while he slept, and he might have cried a little bit. If nothing else, it had made her feel a bit better.

Come morning, things are tense in what Charlie has already begun to refer to as the former Hawthorne clan. Not everyone is entirely happy with their change in leadership, though Charlie can’t help noticing how apathetic they seem about the death of Hawthorne himself. It’s clear that he was no beloved leader, but Charlie hears more than her fair share of grumbling about his replacement. Overhearing a young man talking about the misfortune of being led by a “stupid little whore,” Charlie sees to it that an example is made of him. She scoffs at his description of he – if she was so stupid, she’d absolutely be dead right now. You might call her reckless, perhaps, but Charlie was far from stupid. She’s not fond of the “whore” part either, though she tries not to judge the women in that profession too harshly. They’re all victims in some way or another, same as anybody else. Everyone has to earn a living, one way or another.

It’s ironic, she thinks, that he must be punished for his own stupidity. A few hours later, that man’s tongue has been removed from his mouth, and he is laid up in the infirmary healing. That sends Charlie’s message loud and clear: _don’t fuck with me._

Expecting attempts on her life by ambitious and cocksure assholes, one of Charlie’s first acts as chief of the clan is to find the tattooed man, Rick. She has no real reason to trust him aside from a few kind words in a time of distress, but he’s the closest thing to a friend Charlie has here. He’s angry when he learns that she lied to him about her name, but he agrees to her request that he take the position of personal bodyguard, for the time being at least.

In the confusion of the next few days, it slips Charlie’s mind entirely that she ought to send scouts out to fetch Miles and Monroe from the nearby woods. Between assassination attempts and the constant suppression of (and sometimes use of) violence, her uncle and Monroe, along with Blanchard’s mission, never even occur to Charlie. 

On the third day of her command, things appear to be settling down a bit, and she thinks that this might actually be sustainable. The learning curve of the past few days has been tremendous, and Charlie is confronted with problems faced by the clan that she’d never have imagined – copious infighting, lack of food and other resources, ailing horses and other problems to which Charlie has no solutions. It’s only when she realises that she might be in a little over her head that she thinks to send for Miles and Monroe, instructing a small group of men to bring them back to camp as prisoners, but not to harm them.

It’s payback for the way Miles has treated her over the past months, perhaps. He’s been sulky and standoffish, remnants of the selfish, arrogant prick she first met in Chicago resurfacing. All told, he’s been a shitty person to be around. She doesn’t need a reason to mess with Monroe – his very identity is reason enough. Yes, she’s going to enjoy toying with them, just for a little while.

 

The tent that Miles and Monroe have been brought to is the same one where Charlie was introduced to Spencer Hawthorne a few days earlier. The cloth ceiling is high, the room even bigger now that it isn’t packed with strangers, and this time no fire is lit, a draft sweeping through the room. Things already look so different around here, Charlie thinks as she enters, nodding to the two guards standing just inside the doorway. Without a word they depart, following silent orders to stand just outside of the tent rather than in it.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this stupid plan. If she’s dead, Bass…” Miles hasn’t yet noticed the arrival of their new company, as the splintery wooden chairs he and Monroe are tied to face toward the back of the tent. Charlie approaches quietly, her booted feet stirring up a small cloud of dust but not making a sound.

“She’s not dead,” Monroe says determinedly, and Charlie gets the feeling this is something he’s been repeating for a while now.

“Do you really think we’d be here right now if she was alive? Honestly, if they don’t kill you I will.”

“You keep saying that, but here I am,” Monroe says. “You talk a big talk, Miles, but actions speak louder.”

“No need for taunting,” Charlie interjects, her voice deceptively jovial. She walks between their chairs, and can feel the bewilderment before she turns and sees it in their eyes. Miles’ jaw is slightly slackened, and Monroe’s lips curl up in satisfaction, his eyes shifting from her to Miles.

“Told you so,” he says, and Charlie watches Miles’ expression change from relief to irritation as he shifts in his chair like, if his arms were free, he’d smack Monroe for his insolence.

“Don’t be a child, Monroe.”

His eyes turn back to her and she melts a little bit at the grin that spreads across his face, his dimples showing as he starts to laugh. She hasn’t seen Monroe smile often, and she’s pretty sure if he did it more her resolve would have vanished a long time ago.

“What the hell, Charlie?” Miles nods to the ropes binding them in place.

Her good mood dissipates, and she’s reminded of why she had them tied up. She wants – needs – them to know that this time, Charlie is in charge. She’s seen the way they fight together, when they’re not at each other’s throats. She knows that they’re good, that their history serves them well, communicating in a shorthand that Charlie will never understand, but this time it’s not about them. It’s Charlie’s turn, and she needs Miles and Monroe to understand that in no uncertain terms.

“I need to make sure we’re all on the same page,” she says, pacing about the room. She feels Monroe’s eyes lingering on her as she passes him, and she turns her head, catching his eyes with hers and holding them. The heat in their mutual gaze is something she spent years telling herself was just part of her overactive imagination, but there’s no denying that there is something very, very not imaginary there.

But that can wait.

“What page would that be?” Miles raises an eyebrow sarcastically, clearly not taking her seriously.

“My page,” Charlie snaps. “I’m the leader of these people. I’m the person they’re starting to trust, though very tentatively. You’re a pair of strange men armed to the teeth. I can’t protect you if you fuck things up.”

“What makes you think we need your protection?” Bass laughs drily.

“Have you seen this camp? There are hundreds of them and two of you. If they want you dead, you’re dead. I could try, but who knows if they'd listen to me if I told them not to. Who knows if I'd want them to. So make yourselves useful, and hopefully they won’t want to kill you. Though considering who you both are, that might be an uphill battle. You don’t exactly play nice with others.” She stops behind Miles’ chair, pulling her knife from its sheath on her belt. “Agreed?”

He grunts a noncommittal agreement, and Charlie can tell that he still doesn’t get how important this is. She wonders what it will take for it to get through his thick skull. Nonetheless, she cuts through the rope binding his wrists together, knicking him with her knife on purpose. He pulls away from her, wincing and cursing at her.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she says, cutting the ties on his ankles and releasing him completely. “Get something to eat, try not to piss anybody off. I’ll meet you at the dock in a little while.”

Miles leans his head toward Monroe, “What about him?”

“I’m not done with him,” Charlie’s voice deepens slightly inadvertently, and she clears her throat. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill him.”

“I’m so relieved,” Miles says, deadpan, before standing and shaking off the stiffness of being tied up before leaving the tent. “Good luck,” Charlie opens her mouth to tell him that she doesn’t need his luck, then realises that he wasn’t directing his comment to her and smirks. Maybe he has been paying attention.

Miles out of their vicinity, Charlie turns to Monroe. His eyes are wide, somewhere between scared and confused. Charlie thinks of how easy it had been to loose that bolt in New Vegas, watching it soar toward his pretty head, the drop in her stomach when the bounty hunters beat her to him. How different things are now. Her lip quirks up as she moves to stand before Monroe, and their eyes meet again.

“Funny seeing you have more faith in my ability to pull this off than my own blood,” she says, her voice betraying how not funny it is to her. Disturbing maybe, but certainly not funny. Depressing, absolutely.

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes tell her that he’d been as scared as Miles. It’s sweet, in a way.

“Doesn’t this remind you of the day we met in a way?” she asks, stepping toward him. “Only this time I guess the roles have reversed, haven’t they? You’re my prisoner now, and not threatening to kill me and my brother.” She pauses, pulling her long braid over one shoulder and beginning to loosen it. She’s taken to wearing her hair in the style preferred by the women in the Hawthorne – no, Matheson – clan. It’s convenient, having her hair out of her way, but she’s always felt most comfortable with her hair free around her shoulders, tickling her arms and the back of her neck. “Well, you didn’t quite manage to get my mom to choose between us, yet she ended up one kid short by the end of the week regardless.”

“Technically, I think I facilitated a family reunion,” he says, his eyes sparkling like he finds the topic of their conversation amusing. 

“Is this a joke to you? My brother’s death is funny?” She steps forward again, and her knees are almost touching his. There’s something intoxicating about being so close to him, even when she’s at her angriest.

If anyone came by their ability to hold a grudge honestly, it’s Charlie Matheson.

“Just because I tolerate your presence doesn’t mean that I’ve forgiven you for what you did,” she hisses, and her eyes are burning with unbidden tears of fury. “Sure, you said a few nice things to me once on a cliff. That doesn’t take back all of the shitty, shitty things you’ve done.”

“I’d never ask you to forgive me, Charlie.” There’s such a need in his eyes, but not for forgiveness. When she looks at him, she doesn’t see President Sebastian Monroe. She sees the man who held her awkwardly as she cried over her dead boyfriend. And as much as she appreciates it, she hates it even more.

But something’s broken between them with those words, that acknowledgement of how insurmountable their past is. Charlie didn’t know she needed to hear it, but she did, and suddenly the unbearable heat between them overtakes her and she’s blindly taking another step forward. Except there are his legs, tied to the chair, and she can’t move any closer without climbing into his lap. So she does, her eyes not leaving his, and he communicates confusion and arousal without a word as she leans forward to press her mouth harshly against his. She closes her eyes as they kiss, passionate and hard and angry. 

Fuck it.

She’s imagined this so many times, but never thought it would actually happen. Never thought she’d allow it to happen, and when she opens her eyes again and pulls back, she sees a reflection of her emotions in his expression. 

She’s straddling his lap, her hips hitched over his groin, and she can feel his reaction to her beneath her. She grinds down on him, and he lets out a pained, shallow moan. His eyes are still closed, and Charlie reaches a hand out to grip his stubbled chin.

“You shaved for me, didn’t you,” she whispers.

“’Course not.” His breath catches as her lips find his collarbone, nipping at his skin and tracing tiny circles with her tongue. 

She mumbles something incoherent into his neck, and she’s not even entirely sure what she was trying to say. Her head is filled with white noise, empty and overflowing at once, and she can’t keep a thought straight in her mind. She needs release, and she needs it bad. And Sebastian Monroe, bastard as he may be, is there. He’s hot, and he’s there, and he’s very clearly willing.

She traces her mouth up his neck back to his lips. He smells like dirt and sweat and he desperately needs to bathe. It should be disgusting, but it just seems to make Charlie even hornier. She arches her back, lifting her hips and pressing her chest against his, the nerves in her hard nipples responding to the brush of the layers of clothing separating their bodies. But she doesn’t need to be naked for this, and neither does he. 

She can feel Monroe straining against the rope binding his hands and feet and she smirks wickedly, considering untying him and thinking better of it. She has total control over this situation, and she can walk away whenever she wants to. Or she could if she wasn’t so damn turned on right now. Her panties are wetter than she can remember them being any time before, and he hasn’t even touched her. He tears his lips from hers and kisses feverishly over her jaw, his mouth the only part of his body he can really control. He’s very much a willing participant, Charlie notes, sinking her groin down on his crotch again, moving up and down in a slow but deliberate rhythm. He’s straining against his jeans, and even through their clothes she can tell that he’s bigger than the men she’s been with before. Not that size means anything, she tells herself, if the man can’t use it. 

But she has a feeling Monroe is more than capable of using it.

He’s thrusting upward against her, panting, and Charlie tilts her head, her eyes squeezing shut as she blocks out everything but Monroe underneath her, the friction that’s been building between them for so fucking long, the actual friction of their bodies pressed close. The seam of her jeans rubs at her clit every time she grinds down on him and she lets out a rather loud and un-self-conscious moan. Monroe is worrying away at her exposed neck with his mouth, and she’s certain there will be marks later for her to explain away but she really doesn’t care. 

Loosening the buttons on her jeans, she plunges a hand into her panties as she rides him, the layers upon layers of blissful friction tearing her apart and putting her back together. Her movements become erratic as she brings herself to that ultimate high, the release she’s so badly been craving, and she slumps against him, her body giving out entirely. Her forehead rests against his chest as she breathes heavily, wisps of unbound hair sticking to her sweaty face.

Slowly her mind focuses, clarity returning to her as sensation returns to her limbs. She pushes off of Monroe, almost losing her balance but catching herself before she falls. Wiping a hand across her forehead, she flips her hair back and begins to wind it back into its long-dishevelled braid, avoiding Monroe’s eyes. She re-buttons her jeans and runs her hands along her clothes, her nerve endings still far too sensitive, trying to smooth out any noticeable wrinkles.

When she finally looks at him, there is a pleading in him, though he’s too proud to admit it.

“This doesn’t mean anything, just so we’re clear,” she says, her voice crisp and strangely professional. “It’s nothing personal.”

“Of course. Nothing personal,” Monroe repeats, but the intensity in his eyes says otherwise.

“You’re just a warm body, and so am I. It’s just… release.”

“Pretty sure only one of us got any release,” Monroe says, and Charlie can’t look at him anymore. Those fucking eyes. There’s intimacy in Monroe’s eyes that worries her. “You know, there are dozens of other warm bodies in this camp for you to choose from. Didn’t have to wait for me. Not that I’m complaining.”

She grapples for an excuse. It honestly had never occurred to Charlie that she could sleep with one of the clansmen. She’d never admit it, but the only person she’d even thought about fucking since Willoughby was sitting right in front of her.

“Fucking one of them would be a show of weakness. I’m their leader. They need to respect me. It’s not appropriate.” 

“But you’re not my leader.”

Charlie isn’t sure how to respond, so she doesn’t. Instead, she steps closer to him and runs a nimble finger along his inner thigh, squeezing his cock through his pants, then promptly exits the room.

The guards stationed at the door share a pointed look when Charlie emerges, and her cheeks flush red in embarrassment at what they must have heard. But she doesn’t let the embarrassment last, and casts a disciplinary glance at the guards before telling them curtly, “You can untie him when you feel like it. Let him wait it out a bit though.”

Then she stalks away, following the dirt path through the camp, past tent upon tent, small children playing with weapons (some of which she can’t name), men and women hanging up washing and feeding their families, toward the lake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been a long time coming. It also went through many iterations before making it to the page, and I'm pretty fond of how it turned out. They have a long way to go yet, but I hope you liked this chapter!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lengthier time between updates, life has unfortunately been getting in the way of writing. I also find writing action-y scenes really difficult & far more time consuming than any other scenes, so that made this update drag a bit too! Hopefully you'll enjoy reading!

When Bass is finally freed from the chair his wrists are chafed and his ass is half-numb from the flat board serving as his seat. He stands, his legs wobbly, and gives himself a moment to pull himself together, rubbing his sore wrists and stretching his stiff limbs before leaving the tent.

He’s still not sure what just happened, and isn’t entirely convinced that it was real, Charlie on his lap, dry humping him to completion. Well, her completion. He wasn’t so lucky. But he can still taste the salt of her skin when he licks his lips, the phantom of her inexplicably sweet scent taunting him, and he knows that it must have been real. He’s had more than his fair share of inappropriate daydreams about Charlotte Matheson, occasionally even in her presence, but none of them felt like that. It was visceral, raw in a way that he’s certain he couldn’t have conjured of his own volition.

Not willing to admit that he doesn’t know where her is and ask for directions, Bass wanders the camp in search of Miles and Charlie. He remembers something about meeting Miles by the lake, but he can’t see the water through the mass of canvas. He can feel the eyes of the clanspeople following him, but when he turns to catch them staring their eyes are averted. It reminds him in a way of the conspicuousness of roaming Philadelphia, a practice he’d abandoned altogether in the last years of the Republic. Now, however, the eyes are questioning and suspicious rather than hate- and fearful, masked by a veneer of adoration and loyalty. 

He’s no fool. He knows that his people didn’t love him, at least by the end. It hadn’t mattered, really, though the assassination attempts had done a number on him. It hadn’t been personal, not until the night he woke to Miles standing over his bed, gun trained on him. He supposes that had been his breaking point, when things began to careen downhill rapidly. 

He’d resented the people of the Monroe Republic, he can see that now. He’d thought them ungrateful, unworthy of his efforts to protect them from the bad things out there. Hadn’t they seen that he’d had their best interests at heart? His rules were strict, but they were for their own good. Without the Republic there would have been utter chaos. He was blind to the reality that he was their bogeyman, the thing they feared above all else.

Catching a glimpse of blue through a gap in the tents, Bass changes his course. He isn’t sure how he’s going to look either of them in the eye when he sees them, for very different reasons. He decides to take his cues from Charlie, and hope for the best. He doesn’t want to think about how Miles would react if he knew what his niece had been up to in his absence.

As he approaches the Mathesons, he can’t help noting the distance between them, both physical and emotional. Charlie stands with her arms crossed over her chest and Bass’s eyes are drawn to the leather ties lacing up the bodice of her top. One of the first things he’d noticed when she’d shown herself in that tent was how magnificently different she looked. He’d always appreciated the way her tank tops rode up to reveal slivers of smooth, toned stomach, but this version of Charlie is enticing in an altogether different way. Her braid hangs down her back, haphazardly thrown together but orderly in a way that her usual loose waves are not. In just the few days since they left her here, Charlie has changed intrinsically. Her actions spoke that loudly enough, but Bass can see how much she’s altered just by looking at her. He’s sure Miles sees it too.

He’s concerned, but good lord is she hot all warlord-ed up. Once upon a time he’d been attracted to the same thing in Duncan Page - her command, her presence - but he had no idea how much more it would mean on Charlie. How much it could affect him.

He can’t hear their conversation, but he can tell by their body language that it’s not going well. Miles looks sheepish, cowed by whatever Charlie is saying to him, and as he walks nearer he can pick up her words.

“I thought you knew that you don't get to tell me what to do. This isn’t about you, Miles. I know that’s hard for your ego to take, but not everything is about you.” If he was the blushing type, he would definitely be blushing right now. Instead he offers Charlie a quizzical glance, hoping she’s not talking about what he thinks she is. She responds with a curt shake of her head, and he’s filled with relief.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt. I’m always happy to take part in a good chastising”

Charlie turns on him, fire in her eyes. “That goes for you, too. It’ll be very hard for you, given your tendency be an asshole, but you need to stay in line.” Bass swears she leans in on the word hard, and his throat suddenly goes dry and he chokes on his response. His eyes lock with hers, an attempt at telling her that he’s had enough torture for one day. Her stormy blue eyes communicate nothing back to him, and he hopes his silent message got through.

“No need to repeat yourself, Charlie. We get it, you’re in charge. Not sure why, considering you weren’t even supposed to be on this mission in the first place…” Miles must be trying to antagonise her. He’s not that fucking dumb.

“Need I remind you how it went last time you two thought leading a large group of people was a good idea? If I remember correctly, thousands of people died and one of you lost his damn mind while the other became an alcoholic shut-in. Really not sure what Blanchard was thinking, putting his eggs in your basket.”

“I think it's well established that Blanchard's an idiot.”

Bass grumbles his dissent under his breath, slightly offended by her insults. Admittedly, she’s kind of right. The Republic really didn’t do much for his sanity. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he lost his mind, but he may have been a little bit unhinged for a while there. Maybe.

Their argument over, Miles turns his glowering from his niece to Bass. They haven’t spoken about the things they said to one another the night Charlie infiltrated the camp, but neither has forgotten either. Miles stands between Bass and Charlie, his back to the clear blue water that Bass wants terribly to dive into, washing away the grime of the past few days, his eyes fixed on Bass like he’s trying to decide whether or not to act. His fists are clenched and Bass has a feeling he’s as pleased with Charlie’s change of plans as Bass is. 

He’s noticed a change in Miles too, since leaving Willoughby. He’s conflicted, distant but not as combative as he was before. He’s not his old self again, still battling something just beyond Bass’s vision, but if he squints he can see his brother returning in tiny increments. He’d like to say that it’s just distance from Rachel, but as much as he’d like to blame everything on her even Bass knows that there’s more to it than that. Sure, they’d fought here and there and things didn’t seem to be healing between them, but they’ve known each other for thirty-five years. There are some things that Miles just can’t keep from him.

He’s done trying to earn Miles’ forgiveness, but that doesn’t mean he’s given up on him altogether.

Bass will never be able to extract Miles Matheson from his life. He’ll never really want to. He’s a pain in the ass, yes, but he’s Miles. He’s all Bass has left, and he’s not letting him go that easily.

Charlie’s eyes catch Bass’s over Miles’ shoulder, glimmering mischievously. Fucking hell, that girl is going to be the death of him. Her lips thin into a wicked grin, the tip of her tongue edging out to run over her bottom lip. He wants to grab her and take her where she stands, but that’s clearly not an option. 

“Where the hell can a man find some food around here?” he asks, ignoring her.

She thinks she can just toy with him, watch him scramble under her uncle’s watchful eye? If there’s one thing Bass knows more than war, it’s women, and he’s not about to let this one get the best of him. He wants Charlie, more than anyone he’s wanted in such a long time, but he’s not going to let her turn him into a guileless idiot. He’s not that self-destructive. Well, two can play at whatever game she’s initiating here.

And sometimes experience really is an asset.

 

In the next few days Bass has little time to think about Charlie, let alone do anything about how frustrated she's made him. He takes up residence in what appears to have been a storage tent that smells strongly of horse. His new abode hardly measures up to his rooms in Independence Hall, or even his large but empty house in Willoughby. What he would do for a proper bed.

Though he spends much of his time in Charlie’s company, it is primarily occupied by calculating war plans. Miles’ constant, largely unwanted though necessary presence doesn’t help things. They discuss battle tactics, stealth operations, and how best to make the clan a cohesive unit. Despite the heat Bass now knows is between them, Charlie regards him with a cool professionalism that drives him almost crazier than her teasing.

Once, walking past her to retrieve a map from the other side of the night-chilled tent, he risks dragging the back of his hand down her bare arm while her uncle is distracted, ranting away about his new favourite subject: the myriad reasons why Charlie is completely unprepared for the realities of being a military leader. When he turns to look for some recognition of the contact, her faces betrays nothing.

And then Miles’ tirade is complete, and they’re back to the work they’ve been set to for hours on end. It’s harder than he remembers, earning the clan’s trust and respect, working toward their end goal while placating whatever cultural differences they run across. The attempts on Charlie’s life stop after a few days, when the dissatisfied clanspeople realise that Bass and Miles are harder opposition than they look. They make easy work of thwarting the attacks, which aren’t so well thought out to begin with. The overrunning theme, Bass thinks, is a reliance on machismo over brains. It doesn’t do them any favours.

It is late one night and all three of them, along with Charlie’s tattooed friend and another clans man whose name Bass hasn’t bothered to learn, would much rather be asleep than rehashing the same plans over and over again. They’re all cranky and short-fused, though Bass can see Charlie struggling to retain a shred of patience. 

She’s a good leader, he thinks. It doesn’t come easily to her, but she thinks hard over every decision and wants so desperately to do a good job. He admires those qualities in her, along with so many others. Her bravery, her loyalty, the way she throws herself into whatever she does with utter abandon, even her infuriating stubborn streak. She’s so much more impressive than he’d been at that age, a dumb kid who’d followed his best friend into the Marines because he didn’t know what else to do. 

He’s been following Miles ever since.

Later, they blame the sleep-deprivation for their too-slow reaction times, for the fact that they weren’t sufficiently prepared.

It’s not until they hear a woman’s scream piercing the quiet of the night that they realise something is horribly wrong. Seconds later a scout, a small squirrelly looking man who doesn’t look like he’d be much use in a fight, bursts into the tent, breathless. He struggles through an urgent message, telling Charlie and her men of a breach of the camp between gasping breaths. Panicked, Charlie looks from Miles to Bass for some kind of guidance. He can see on her face the fear that Miles was right about her leadership qualities.

He sends what he hopes is a reassuring look her way before reaching for his sword belt and leather jacket, both of which were removed as the long evening progressed into a longer night. He grabs a gun and a few extra clips of ammo before heading into the camp, Miles close on his heels.

“St. Matthews?” Miles suggests as they rush toward the noise on the other side of camp.

“No, there’d too many casualties.” Since when does he actually care about strangers dying? He thought he’d long blocked away that part of him.

“Leesburg?”

“Not enough men.”

“Loretto?”

“Goddamnit Miles, they’re not going to work. We haven’t been in this situation before. The Militia wasn’t a war clan, they don’t work the same way,” Bass snaps. He catches a glimpse of movement in the shadows when he turns to look at Miles and he unsheathes his sword, cutting down the man lurking behind them with a slice across his unprotected neck.

 _I really hope that wasn’t one of ours,_ Bass thinks fleetingly, continuing down the dirt corridor between rows of tents. Despite the fact that this clan is a collective of trained warriors, there is a total lack of order and discipline in the camp as Bass and Miles push past throngs of armed clanspeople in search of their enemies.

The problem is that it’s hard to tell friend from foe in the absence of uniforms. In times like these, Bass longs for the simplicity of his militia with their clearly marked Civil War replication uniforms, or even the distinctive khaki worn by the patriots.

It’s much easier to spot the person trying to kill you when he doesn’t look like everyone else.

Which seems to be the problem faced by most of the clan, though they at least have the luxury of knowing each other’s faces. Bass can only hope for the best.

He steps over the body of a tow-headed child, blood still gushing from a wound he can’t spot, and he knows it’s too late for help. There’s not staunching it – the kid has probably already bled out by now. He looks around, eyes peeled for whoever might be responsible for this. The murderer can’t have gotten that far in this crowd, but he can’t see anyone who looks more suspicious than the rest. 

He tries not to get emotional, but killing children has always struck Bass as crossing a line. It’s a line he’s crossed himself, but it still haunts him when he least expects it. He reminds himself for the thousandth time that what he did was necessary at the time. It was true then, and it’s true now, but that never made it easier. 

He’d insisted on being present for the slaughter of the rebels outside of Lancaster. Call it masochistic, but he’d wanted to remember, to see the lifeless bodies of the people he’d killed, men, women and children. It had been a massacre, really. They’d never stood a chance. He could have made the orders in Philly, heard an account from his men after the fact, but he needed to hold himself accountable. It disgusted him, the lengths he’d go to for Miles. He’d killed them so that Miles didn’t have to.

And if it meant that Miles was spared that horror, he’d do it all over again.

It’s disorienting, the crowd swirling around them, weapons drawn, panicked, but Bass is well practiced in keeping his cool in combat. Of course, combat as he’s accustomed to it doesn’t usually look like this. It doesn’t take long before the mob begins to calm, disperse. He takes that as a sign that the threat has been nullified, and when he returns to his tent to find a strange man tied to a rickety wooden chair like a sadistic gift, it’s just the confirmation he needs.

The man is passed out when Bass finds him, a note tucked between the ropes across his chest. Bass plucks the note from between the ropes, unfolding it and reading the message scrawled in what has become over the past few days very familiar script.

 **GET HIM TO TALK. DO WHATEVER’S NECESSARY**. Charlie’s writing is blocky, each letter capitalized and equally spaced from the next with a precision that looks all too much like his own. He hadn’t always taken such care with his writing, and he suspects this style of writing is new to Charlie, too. A part of her professional façade.

At first he’s surprised at what she’s asking of him. It’s no secret that he’s good at torturing information out of people – he’s done it more times than he can count, each time seemingly easier than the last. But this is Charlie. She’s never much cared for the use of torture. She’s more of a kill them with kindness type, like her mother. The kind who stabs you in the back just when you feel safest.

But no, Charlie isn’t Rachel. As far as he knows, she hasn’t gored any of her friends with screwdrivers just to remain useful. It’s funny though, he’d been furious with Rachel when she murdered Dr. Jaffe but he’d also respected the hell out of that rash decision. She’d been desperate and done what she’d had to do, just like he would have. He’d like to think he’d have cooperated in Rachel’s shoes, but it’s no mystery where her daughter got her stubborn streak.

Folding the note and slipping it into the back pocket of his jeans, he strikes his captive across the face with his hand. He startles awake, immediately fighting against his restraints. Bass smiles coldly, introducing himself to the man. 

“Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to answer my questions, and I won’t make you scream until you pass out, then wake you up and make you scream some more. Trust me, you’ll like me a lot more if you take the easy route.”

The man says nothing, his lips set into a line that betrays a steely resolve that makes Bass sigh. 

“The hard way it is, I suppose,” he says. “First, I think we’ll start with your finger nails.” He turns from the man, picking a pair of rusty pliers from the table laid out with tools to one side of the tent. Someone worked quickly in putting this together, and he’s grateful for that person’s foresight.

“Let’s start with an easy question. Who sent you here?” Bass asks, his voice measured and calm.

Again, the man says nothing as Bass approaches, brandishing the pliers dramatically. He picks up one of the man’s hands and opens the pliers, holding them up to one of his nails. “I asked you a question. Who sent you here?”

The man leans close, like he might say something, but when Bass locks eyes with him those eyes are filled with defiance. Before he can react, a glob of slimy spit is colliding with his cheek. As he wipes the saliva away with the back of a gloved hand, a cold familiar rage washes over him.

He hadn’t expected to like this part of his job when the Republic was formed, had thought the brutality better suited to Miles’ temperament than his own. But Miles had never had a knack for torture, and those Bass had eventually delegated the task to men like Strausser, he’d relished his ability to locate a man’s breaking point.

His ears rang with the man’s bloodcurdling screams late into the night, the sound flooding him with memories, good and bad. He slips so easily, so comfortably, back into General Monroe of the Monroe Republic. He can feel the heft of his old coat, the high buttoned collar of his shirts against his chest. It felt like coming home in a way, and the regression doesn’t scare him like he thought it would. Perhaps it’s paradoxical, given that he is working under the orders of another, but he feels completely in control.

He wipes the blood from his tools with a damp rag, placing each device back on the table in the exact place he found it with a surgeon’s precision. The man sits unconscious behind him, alive but only barely, and Bass has all of the answers he needs. There was a moment, after his final question was finally answered, when Bass felt an incredible urge to swipe a blade quickly across the man’s neck. He wouldn’t have thought twice of it even just a few months ago.

In a way, he’d told himself, it would be the merciful thing to do. End his suffering then and there. Prevent him from leaking any information back to his leader about what he learned about the Matheson clan.

But he is more pragmatic now, less impulsive, at least in some ways, and he has the clarity of mind to see how this man has as much potential use to them alive as he does dead. Besides, he reminds himself as he walks through the heavy canvas flap and into the crisp early morning air, this is Charlie’s responsibility. It’s up to her to decide what to do with him. He approaches a nearby stranger, a woman with dark uncombed hair and sad eyes, and tells her to find someone to tend to the wounds of the man inside his tent. He won’t allow infection to steal his – Charlie’s – prisoner. Then he stalks off in search of the new warlord. He has a lot of information to share with her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so much fun to write that it ended up being about double the length of most of the other chapters. No regrets whatsoever. Hope you like it! Please please comment and share your thoughts! I live for feedback.

Despite the chaos of the previous night, there are fewer casualties than Charlie feared. By early morning a count has been reported to her: seven of her people dead, another twelve injured. She’s told that there were only five attackers, likely overzealous scouts from another clan. She can only hope that there weren’t more waiting behind to see what happened. She can’t afford to lose any more of her people today.

She shouldn’t take the losses so personally, but trying not to is futile. She knows that some measure of death is unavoidable in her position, but all she can think is that she let those seven people die. She failed to save them, just like she hadn’t saved Danny or Nora or Maggie. Just another failure. It’s her fault that things were so disorienting last night, her lack of preparation.

Her head aches with all of the self-criticism and she can’t bear to think what the whispers outside her tent must be saying. She’s exhausted, which only spurs on the little voice in her head telling her how useless she is.

She can distantly hear Rick talking strategy behind her, but she can’t quite make out any of the words. She’s only half-listening, too bogged down by her only self-doubt until the flap of her tent flutters and Monroe enters, his shirt and jeans speckled with dried blood – not his own, it’s safe to assume.

“Well?” She paces back and forth around the room, aware that if she sits down, if she even stops moving, she’ll fall asleep.

Monroe produces a stiff piece of paper, stepping closer to Charlie to hand it over. His calloused, slightly damp fingers skim over hers as she takes the document, sending a jolt of electricity that is muted by exhaustion through her arm. Even her nerve endings are too tired to function properly, though in this instance she’s grateful for their numbness.

Not acknowledging the brief contact, Charlie peers down at the page. The words swim across her vision, each letter collapsing into the next, and she sets it down on a small crowded table, irritated. She can’t even read a damn letter. She turns to Monroe, who immediately picks up on her desperate but subdued cue to tell her about his discoveries aloud.

“He cracked pretty easily,” he begins, and Charlie hopes that he will refrain from going into detail. She may have ordered it, but a large part of her doesn’t want to know what he had to do to get the answers she requested. “They were Lowery’s men, sent to check up on the Hawthorne clan. Guess there was a bit of a rivalry between old Spencer and Marshall Lowery. When they saw that Hawthorne’d been replaced by, and I quote here, a ‘skinny little bitch,’ they thought we’d be easy pickings. Dumbasses forgot that changing leadership doesn’t make the people forget how to fight. Once they realised they were on a sinking ship they just tried to hurt or kill as many people as possible on their way down. We’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

“People died. My people. That’d bad enough,” Charlie says. 

“People die, Charlotte. If that’s something you’re gonna get hung up on, maybe Miles is right. Maybe you should step down and let the grown-ups take over.” 

The suggestion, coming from Monroe of all people, that Charlie was too weak to lead raises Charlie’s hackles instantly, and she takes a step toward him, trying to look as threatening as she knows how. Physically, he doesn’t react, but she can see a glint of laughter in his eyes. That cocky asshole.

“You want my clan? You’ll have to kill me first.”

“You think I wouldn’t?”

“I think that Miles would have a bullet in your brain before you got anywhere near me. If I didn’t beat him to it.” They’ve somehow moved closer to one another, and she can smell blood and sweat and smoke and perhaps a hint of lye on him when she inhales. His eyes are all she can see, big and blue and so damn expressive. They say all of the things that words cannot, and everything else seems to drop away in the laboured silence until, his presence completely forgotten since the moment Monroe set foot into her tent, Rick clears his throat.

“What else did the prisoner have to say?” he asks, his eyes following Charlie as she backs away from Monroe. She can’t look at either of them right now. She’d see only accusations in their faces, of very different sorts.

“He said that their camp is northwest of here, somewhere called Oak Valley. Their clan’s smaller than this one, and they obviously don’t know yet about the change in management here. That could change soon, though. They left a rider behind to return to their camp this morning with the news.”

“We need to intercept that rider,” Charlie interrupts. “Do we have anyone who can do it? We’ve lost a bit of time, we need someone fast.”

“He was to leave at dawn, so if we sent someone now we should have a shot. It’s about a four hour ride, according to their man,” Monroe says. “Go, find whoever will be fastest.”

Rick hurries out of the tent, not waiting for further instructions.

An awkward silence settles over the room, Charlie and Monroe standing as far from one another as possible in the confines of the tent. Charlie’s afraid that if either of them moves, or even breathes too hard, she won’t be able to resist grabbing him and dragging him to the twin sized bed tucked to one side of the tent. It doesn’t help to see a hint of the results of his work on his clothes. Instead of repulsing her, the blood turns her on even more. 

“Did you get his name?” she asks finally. Standing there in silence staring holes through each other, she’s sure that if she doesn’t say something she’ll break.

“Am I an amateur? Of course I did. Sean Wilson.”

“Did he… did he kill the little boy? I saw – last night, there was a kid bleeding out. Nobody even tried to save him, it was too crazy out there. Did Wilson kill him?” Her voice is shaky. She’s not sure whether she really wants to hear the answer.

“He did.”

She pauses, not quite sure what to say now that she knows. She’d needed to hear him say it, but now that it’s out there she feels even emptier than before.

“What did you do with the body?” Her eyelids are so heavy. She has so much to do, so many people to talk to, to comfort, but she’s so tired. Her eyes flutter closed but she forces herself to stay awake, her eyes focusing on the unlit lantern by her bed.

“The kid’s? I don’t know what was done with it. His parents…”

“He didn’t have parents. Just a sister. Rick said they were from a little town south of here. Capen or Copey or something like that.”

“Copan,” Monroe says, not offering any explanation for his knowledge but Charlie sees the pain of some kind of realization on his face from across the room.

“I meant Wilson, actually. Have you disposed of his body?”

“No. I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do with him so I had his wounds dressed. He’s alive.”

“He’s a child killer,” she says coldly. “I want him dead. He doesn’t deserve to live. Make it slow and painful, Monroe. I know you’re good for that.” She still can’t quite look at him even as she gives the orders. It’s different, ordering an execution. Not the same as killing in battle at all. And strange as it is, she longs for the blood on her hands, the feeling of being the hand of justice for once in her life. Monroe is turning to leave when Charlie changes her mind.

“Wait. I want to be there. I want to kill him myself. I _should_ kill him myself.”

 

Wilson’s blood cleaned from her hands, Charlie and Monroe return to her tent, where they are met by Miles and a number of men and women from the clan. Charlie’s met all of them before, but her foggy brain doesn’t allow her to retrieve their names. The deaths of the seven people, as well as the five Lowery scouts, offers a chance that Charlie can’t afford to pass up. They came here to attack war clans, and that’s exactly the opportunity she’s been given. She has an entirely valid excuse to take on the Lowery clan, and she’s going to take it, ready or not.

She feels utterly unprepared for what needs to be done before the clan can move in on their enemy, and though she hates the thought, she considers the idea that perhaps Monroe was right that she should hand over the reins. But Charlie’s too proud to admit defeat so quickly, especially not to those assholes. She can still be the person in charge, even if she does turn to Miles and Monroe for advice. Didn’t Aaron’s history lessons always tell her that good leadership was about assembling the best team for the job? Sure, Miles and Monroe are older and infinitely better trained than she, but she’s smart. Dedicated. Determined. Not to mention that they don’t have an entirely spotless record between the two of them. 

“We have to act now,” she says, raising her voice over the cacophony of chatter in her tent. “Much as I’d like to wait, we don’t have time. They’ll notice when their men don’t return. If we want surprise on our side, we have to act now.”

“That’s not possible. It takes time to get everything in order. Weapons, people, a solid plan of attack. Not to mention the logistics of travelling with a group this large. We’ve done it before, but you haven’t.” The speaker is a hardened-faced but pretty woman who looks to be in her mid-thirties. Charlie has spoken with her before on multiple occasions, but can’t recall her name. It begins with an M, she thinks. Megan? Melissa?

“Then we don’t take everybody. We send a few scots today, find out how many there are in their camp, what their weak spots are and how best to attack. When they get back we’ll know how many people we need. We won’t need everybody, not if we can surprise them.” Charlie argues. She doesn’t need to explain herself to this woman, but she wants to. She wants her orders to be respected, not just followed.

“And the people left behind?” the woman continues. “Who will protect them?”

“Every person in this camp is capable of defending themselves. I’ve seen what you can do. I wouldn’t be surprised if the babies were battle ready,” Charlie says.

“She’s right. The longer we talk about it the more time they have to put two and two together,” Miles says. Charlie turns to look at her uncle, until now standing silently to her right, her mouth slightly agape. From the way Miles had been talking since he and Monroe had been brought to the camp, she’d thought he’d be the last person to stand on her side now. He smirked back at her and she was hit by an overwhelming need to wrap her arms around him in a tight hug. Her partner was back.

As they gave orders, delegating tasks and organizing the attack to their best ability, people trickled in and out of the tent. Charlie hardly noticed them, her mind attuned to just one task at a time. Morning melted into afternoon and Charlie found herself left alone with her uncle, bent over a map of pre-Blackout southern Kansas. Slumping into a chair, she redirected her quickly diminishing reserve of energy toward Miles.

“How did you do this without collapsing?” she asks. “It’s barely been a week and I hardly remember what sleep feels like.”

Miles laughs, his dark eyes gleeful in a way that Charlie rarely sees. “You’re doing good, kid. Hang in there.”

She gives him an incredulous look. “You weren’t saying that yesterday. Or the day before. Or ever, since we got here.”

He sombers, sitting in the chair across from hers, their knees almost touching under the small table.

“I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time,” he says. “I knew you could do it, I just needed to see how well you knew it too.”

“And your solution was berating me?”

“Never said it was a great idea,” he grumbled. “And fine, maybe I was a bit pissed about your little coup, but I don’t even like being in charge. It’s a weight off my back, you taking over here. There’s a reason Bass was president, not me.”

“Let me guess, you couldn’t win people over with your effortless charm?” Charlie teased.

“Shut up. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve got your back. Always have.”

“Not always.” She thinks of how lonely she’d been in Willoughby, how distracted Miles had been. “You and my mom… I was wrong. I guess I thought if you were together I’d kind of have a dad again. I mean, it’s not the same, you’ll never replace him, but… I don’t know. I thought it’d make things better. But you make each other miserable, Miles.”

“Love isn’t always easy, kid.” She can tell that the change of subject makes him uncomfortable, and she doesn’t like talking about it either but she presses on.

“Do you ever – I think… Do you think maybe mom was kind of your rebound? After Nora…”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Charlie. Drop it.”

“Okay.” She reaches out and squeezes his hand resting on the tabletop. “But think about it, okay?”

She takes his silence as agreement, releasing his hand and turning her attention back to the map between them.

 

The next morning, after just a few short hours of sleep, the plans are in full swing. People run about the camp collection weapons, relaying urgent messages between themselves, saying hopeful but tear-stained farewells to loved ones. In the confusion, Charlie manages to escape camp with gun and her crossbow, slipping into the forest unnoticed. She’s always found hunting a therapeutic, calming activity and she needs those things more than ever right now.

She hasn’t allowed herself to say it aloud, and she hopes to project only the utmost confidence in her dealings with her people, but she’s scared. Fucking terrified, really. She hopes a bit of alone time will help to alleviate the fear making itself at home in her bones.

Her footsteps crunching crispy autumn leaves echo around her as she trudges through the forest, aware that every noise she makes drives any wildlife away from her. She doesn’t much care, for the first time in her life. Her belly is full, for once she does not depend on her silence to provide her with nourishment. Still, she’s quieter than most would be, merely out of habit. She steps softly, avoiding the louder snap of dry twigs and fallen tree branches.

The forest parts abruptly, though the clearing Charlie steps into seems to have been reclaimed by nature over the past fifteen years. She walks across the cracked pavement, tufts of grass growing resolutely wherever it can. She peers into the windows of the long-parked cars at the layers of dust discolouring the upholstery. It’s clear that anything that could have been salvaged from these vehicles was claimed a long time ago. She can’t remember the feeling of riding in a car, though she knows she must have when she was young. Her parents had owned an SUV, she remembers her mother lamenting over its’ loss as she pulled Charlie and Danny around in that little wagon so many years ago. They’d used that car for everything before the blackout. Now it was nothing but a heap of rust lost somewhere in Chicago.

At the far end of the parking lot, next to a field of tall grass is a children’s playground obscured by foliage. Vines climb up the jungle gym and the swing set, resilient patches of grass and wildflowers shoot up from the dirt at random. A smile twinges on her lips as she approaches the plastic and metal structures as she recalls the joy of a childhood long abandoned. She can only vaguely remember being free to play on structures like these, before the world had gone to shit and she’d learned to find fun in so many other, more mundane ways, one eye always tuned to Danny’s every move. A seesaw, barely visible through the brambles growing over it, draws her attention and she pictures herself on one end, her mom behind her holding her waist while Danny and her dad sit across from them. She can almost feel the giddiness of her feet leaving the ground when her mother pushed them up into the air.

She can feel herself beginning to cry, though she’s not entirely sure why she’s doing it, as she walks toward the vine-covered swing set, testing the strength of the seat by pressing down with both hands before sitting. She kicks out tentatively, the motion coming back to her immediately. It’s like riding a bike, she thinks, something you think you’ve lost but that comes back with hardly a thought.

She’s swinging in earnest, the ground swooshing past her feet as she flies up and back down again when she hears the crack of an approaching footstep. She drags her feet through the dirt, slowing herself to a halt and reaching for the gun in its’ holster at her hip. She readies herself, releasing the safety and aiming toward the spot she’s certain the noise came from.

“Who’s there?” she says, her voice trembling despite her best effort to sound threatening and in control.

The bushes shuffle, then part to reveal a tall, light-haired man, the effect of whose seeming omnipresence Charlie has spent the better half of the past week trying to suppress. She’s been so conscious not to be alone with him, unsure what will happen when two consistently unpredictable people collide. She’s not ashamed of the way she’s used other people to shield herself against him. Against herself.

She knows what she wants, but is filled every day with more uncertainty about what comes afterward. She knows that whatever is between them is the opposite of constructive – she’d never dream of building a life with a man like Monroe. Yet whenever she’s near him her nerves turn to live wires. She’d thought that she was in control, gyrating against him, leaving him alone in that tent, but she’s so aware now of the unspoken promise they’d made in that moment, a promise that remains unfulfilled.

She can see every time their eyes meet, even in rooms crowded with other people, that he too is conscious of that promise and all that it means. And it suddenly feels like she’s not in control after all, that she’s somehow lost the upper hand without even realizing it was happening.

“I knew it was just a matter of time before one of us shot the other,” he says, his casual tone filled with confidence that she won’t shoot. “To be honest, I kind of hoped we were over that though.” She’s tempted to pull the trigger, just to see if it wipes the cocky smirk off his face. Instead, she lowers her gun, flipping the safety back on but not sliding it back into its holster.

“About time I got you alone. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were avoiding me.” _I was._

“Been busy. Not much time for chit-chat, in case you hadn’t noticed. Speaking of, don’t you have somewhere to be?” She’d put Miles and Monroe in charge of organizing the clans warriors into troops, hoping that whatever weirdness lay between them could be put aside in the name of professionalism. These people weren’t trained, disciplined soldiers like the men they’d led in the Militia, but they were definitely deadly. They knew enough to operate in an orderly fashion. She hoped.

“I’d say the same to you, warlady. Half the camp’s looking for you right now.” He walks slowly toward her, dropping into the swing next to hers. White scars mark his fingers, wrapped around the ropes holding him up. Charlie lets herself analyze these scars for only a few seconds, wondering what caused them, wondering if Monroe even remembers.

“You’re right,” she says, tearing her eyes from his bruised knuckles and holstering her gun before standing. “I should get back.”

She’s stepping away from the swing set when she feels his warm hand close around her wrist. Her eyes flutter closed at the rush of endorphins that floods through her. Just that tiny contact of skin against skin, bare and raw, is enough to turn her into molten lava, into a cracked piece of clay baking in a kiln burning 2000 degrees hot, seconds from shattering into dust.

“Or you could stay a little while longer and we could pick up where we left off on that chair.” His voice dips into a lower register, gravelly and infinitely seductive, the kind of voice that rarely, if ever, hears the word no. She doesn’t think she has it in her to turn away from a voice like that, and when he pulls her to him, her feet knocking against his as he draws her down to capture her lips with his own, she knows that she’s too far gone. Gently his knee nudges her legs open, pulling her down to straddle his lap, so reminiscent of their last encounter of this kind. Yet somehow this time Charlie knows that she’s utterly powerless here.

“I don’t think-“ she mumbles against his lips, but is interrupted by a quick snap and the sudden rush of gravity toppling them into the dirt. Monroe lands with a loud ‘oof’ and Charlie quickly scurries backwards off of him, humiliated. But then he’s rubbing his tailbone and whatever pain he’s experiencing turns into laughter, his dimples lighting up his whole face like an infectious beacon of joy, and then Charlie is laughing too. He reaches for her, sitting in a cloud of dust, and pulls her back down to him, and it’s a kind of kiss that Charlie can’t make sense of. This kiss wasn’t born of hate or lust or desperate need, the things she’s come to associate with Monroe. No, this time he’s kissing her just because he _wants_ to. She can feel him smiling against her lips and knows that she’s doing the same, and it doesn’t make any damn sense but it feels right in an entirely foreign way.

In this one brief moment he doesn’t expect anything of her, there are no unwritten contracts or obligations between them. He’s not Sebastian Monroe, murderer of fathers and brothers and friends, just like she’s not Charlotte Matheson, hardened and hollow and monstrous. They’re just lips and hands, just bodies pressed against one another on a dirt playground floor, and it’s so beautifully uncomplicated that it takes her breath away.

And then they part and reality crowds back into Charlie’s brain. Her smile falls and again she’s conscious of every piece of skin touching his, burning imprints in her like invisible tattoos. She’ll never be able to forget this moment, or whatever comes next. She’ll never be able to go back from this, to deny the reality of this mystery thing between them.

Her eyes meet his, hesitant and cautious and she’s struck by how deeply she wants to go back to the previous moment. 

But there’s no turning back, and they both know it better than anything else, so when Monroe lifts a hand to tuck the hair, come loose from her braid and hanging in her face, back behind her ear it feels like the world breaks apart around her. The way his eyes stare into hers as his hand lingers on her cheek, his palm hot against her skin, makes her heart beat so fast it hurts. Unsteady, her hands reach for the buttons of her shirt but though she tries she can’t seem to make her fingers work, fumbling over the smooth plastic of the long-replaced, mismatched buttons. She looks back up at him when his hands brush hers, and his eyes ask permission as slowly he plucks the buttons from their holes one by one. He hesitates between each button and each time she nods shallowly, shivering when his calloused fingers brush against her bare skin.

He reaches her last button, pulling her shirt down off her shoulders to reveal her bra and her naked stomach. He’s still looking at her eyes, not wandering across her body like she’d expect, and it’s somehow so much more intimate than any other time she’s exposed herself to a man like this.

She’s no virgin, but she feels self-conscious before him, suddenly aware of all of the years separating them. She doesn’t know how old he is exactly, and it doesn’t matter really. He’s old enough to be her father. Yet the way he looks at her is anything but familial. 

Her hands press against his muscled chest, still covered by too many layers of clothing, and she pushes him down into the dirt, laying her torso over his and finding her way back to his lips, pillowy and soft, familiar yet still so strange. His mouth tastes like toothpaste; she wonders if the way she tastes to him is as enthralling. His tongue presses against her lips and she opens her mouth slightly, beckoning him in. They part only long enough for Monroe to twist in the dirt, pulling her under him and trapping her under his weight, then his lips are back on her, but not on her lips. They’re on her eyelids, on her jaw, snaking down her neck to her clavicle, dipping lower to kiss around the edges of her dirty cotton bra. She tugs at his jacket, unable to articulate her need, and he strips it off, followed in short order by his shirt. She marvels at the tone of his body, the light trail of hair running down his torso and disappearing under his jeans. She pulls him back to her, writhing against the touch of his naked chest against hers.

“Bra,” she says, and he understands the command in the word, his hands slipping behind her back to undo her bra as he kisses her hairline near her ear. She lets out a tiny moan and twists her fingers into his curls. He responds by bucking against her and she tightens her grip on his hair to test the connection. He groans into her hair and she pulls him back to her mouth before slipping her bra down her arms and flicking it away.

Her nipples are hard against his chest, sensitive enough that she’s sure that she could come from the friction alone. But then the pressure of his body vanishes, replaced by the wetness of his mouth around one nipple, his tongue dancing circles over her. She squirms under him, one hand unfurling from his hair to direct attention to her other nipple. His fingers run over her breast, intentionally avoiding her nipple until she lets out an irritated squeal, the hand not in his hair reaching down to squeeze Monroe’s ass. She pulls him back, breaking his mouth from its work on her nipple, sitting up and pawing at his jeans. Her fingers are more than capable now, deftly undoing the buttons and zipper and pushing his jeans down over his hips. 

She wraps her long fingers around his length, still enclosed in his boxers, as he kicks his way out of his jeans. She doesn’t like to compare her lovers – not that she’d call Monroe a lover. More like a friend with benefits. She’s not even sure if she considers him a friend. But he’s definitely well-endowed, not that the men she’s been with before weren’t gifted in their own ways. 

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what to do with it?” Monroe hisses as Charlie holds him, motionless, her thoughts leaving her adrift. 

She sets her steely gaze on him.

“Trust me, I know what to do with it.” 

It’s true, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t nervous. She’s never been with someone who was so much older, so much more experienced. It’s intimidating, without question. There’s so much she doesn’t know, so many expectations to live up to. How can she know if she measures up?

But that’s not going to stop her from trying.

“Then show me,” he whispers into her ear, sending another tremor of desire through her. Let it be known that Charlie Matheson is never one to back down from a challenge.

She makes quick work of discarding his underwear, pulling them both to their feet in the process. Without a word, she directs him to the swing she’d been sitting on earlier, then lowers her mouth to his cock. She licks along the bottom and he stiffens in response, though she hadn’t thought it possible for him to get harder. The touch of her tongue loosens a loud, unashamed moan from his lips and a surge of pride rushes through her. She’s never really enjoyed oral sex before, found it tedious and sometimes painful, but she’s never wanted so badly to be the source of a person’s unhindered pleasure.

She draws him into her mouth, moving down in slow, tortured increments as he strains against her. She looks up at him as she pulls back, but his eyes are squeezed tight, concentrating fixedly on his own pleasure. She’s struck by all of the things she doesn’t know about Sebastian Monroe, about what he likes and doesn’t like, about what brings him unabashed happiness. Until this moment, she didn’t think she cared. She never thought about making Monroe happy. She pushes the thought aside, concentrating on the task at hand. She may never bring him any other kind of happiness, but she can do this.

She pulls him back down to the ground when he finishes, whispering in his ear as she casually traces the lines of the scars on his back, “So, did I know what to do with it?”

A smile breaks across his face that makes her heart flutter in a way that frightens her, and he nods.

“Abso-fucking-lutely. Now I believe it's my turn."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was such a pain in the ass to write, but I'm semi-happy with where it is now, so here's chapter thirteen! 
> 
> I cannot believe that I've written thirteen chapters of this story, tbh. When I started, I wasn't confident that I'd get past three and I'm so, so glad that I have. Thank you all for reading and commenting and being absolutely lovely.

Bass would be entirely content never to leave this spot. Never to move again, if it meant he got to spend the rest of eternity wrapped around this gorgeous, glorious woman. He buries his nose in her hair, careful not to touch the nape of her neck with his cold nose, and breathes in the scent of her soap, something he’s never had the time to linger on before: roses and salt and something else that he can’t mark that is singularly hers.

But after everything he’s been through, Bass knows better than to dream. 

Try as he may though, lying on the dirt next to her, her taste still fresh on his tongue, he can’t regret what they’ve done. It was fun, if nothing else. Complicated, yes, but undeniably enjoyable.

He’s such a fucking idiot. Years ago he’d chastised Miles for getting together with Nora, telling him that he was cradle robbing, sleeping with a woman ten years his junior. In comparison, Charlie is practically a fetus. Somehow, he doesn’t care.

They untangle themselves from one another in silence, unsure of what to say to one another as they dress. Bass pulls on his clothes as quickly as possible, not allowing his eyes to linger on Charlie as she covers her delicious body.

“This… we shouldn’t do this again,” she says, clasping her bra and pulling the straps over her shoulders.

“That’s probably true.”

“Not that I don’t want to. I mean, it was good. I just… Miles. My mom. It’s weird, right?”

He shrugs. “Not the weirdest situation I’ve been in, but sure.”

Charlie looks up then, raising an eyebrow, but doesn’t ask him for details. He’s glad.

“If you change your mind…”

“I won’t,” she promises. By the time they’re both clothed, the hardness has returned to her eyes. She’s shut off, locked herself away behind a door with no knob. It’s disappointing, but not a surprise.

She pauses, on edge like a bird ready to take flight at the first sign of danger, her eyes sliding towards the dense forest then back to Bass.

“You should wait here a while,” she says. “We shouldn’t be seen going back to camp together, just in case.” 

He nods in agreement, and she disappears back into the forest, not looking back at him even as he silently begs her to turn around, give him just one hint that it mattered to her. 

Bass has always known that Charlie will never be his happily ever after, he was never that delusional. But maybe he’d thought that this moment in the woods might mean something to her, as it did to him. Love was never on the table; he didn’t think it was an emotion either of them were capable of, but the way she’d responded to his touch, the way she tasted when they’d kissed under the broken swing… It was stupid, but maybe he’d let himself believe that it meant something.

For a while, when he’d first noticed himself staring at her around camp when no one else could see, he’d convinced himself that it wasn’t really about Charlie. It was simply a matter of coveting what Miles had – first Emma when they were teenagers, then later his family, so tight-knit, so alive, and Nora and Rachel and every woman in between. He’d told himself that he just wanted to take one more thing away from Miles, another thing that Bass had never had. But standing in that overgrown park, watching her walk away, he has to admit to himself that it’s more than that. He cares about Charlie in a way that is completely separate from her uncle.

He never meant to care about her at all.

Fuck.

He can play it cool. He can walk back into camp and act like this tryst never occurred, if that’s what she wants. If that’s what Charlie needs from him, he’ll do it.

If it was any other girl… but no, it couldn’t have been any other girl. Any other woman. It had to be her. With her unwavering bravery, her fierce wit, the burbling need underlying her every action. Somehow, being around her makes him feel whole again the way he’d thought finding Connor would. She fills the gaping hole ripped in him by Shelly’s death, the hole that had been torn deeper and deeper until it became all he was. Yet Charlie Matheson floods out of it, filling every empty crevice of his being without even trying.

And the sex. Good god, the sex. He’d thought she’d been perfect in his imagination, but she was better than perfect. The sex between them toed the line between frenzied and languid, rough and gentle. There was no promise of romance, and no desire for it. Her body is a book that he’d kill to read again, to find all of the subtext and clues for things he hasn’t seen yet. He longs to satisfy her in every way she could imagine, and some possibly beyond the realm of her imagination. He wants to taste every inch of her, savour every toned inch of flesh, every golden hair on her head.

He wants her to feel the same way, but Sebastian Monroe has had too many dreams shatter around him to pin his hopes on this girl, this stubborn, tempestuous girl. His saviour and, he’s certain, his ruin.

He waits until he can no longer hear her footsteps taking her away from him, then he heads back toward camp and the uncertain reality awaiting him there.

 

The three hours between the two camps loom wide before Bass, filled with the promise of his own personal form of torture. Even repeating that first trip to Willoughby with Charlie seems more appealing – at least then he hadn’t known how she tasted, the feel of her heart beating in time with his. He hadn’t had to lie when Miles had yelled at him, immediately assuming he’d somehow coerced Charlie into enduring his company, but things have changed since then in so many ways. 

As they’d readied the horses and put together the last of their preparations, he’d avoided Miles altogether. The idea of Miles somehow intuiting what happened between Bass and Charlie horrifies Bass, and he’d like to postpone whatever conversation it might prompt for as long as possible. In kind, Charlie appeared to be doing the same to him, turning on her heel and skittering off in the other direction whenever she saw him coming her way. They haven’t spoken since arriving back at the camp. He can’t read her – she won’t let him read her.

They’ve been on the road a little more than an hour, the size of their cohort hindering their speed of movement and lengthening the journey, when Miles steers his horse sidelong next to Bass. The look on Miles’ face says that Bass was right to spend the afternoon hiding from him – whatever conversation is about to happen is not going to be pleasant. He’s trapped in place on all sides by other riders, otherwise he’d be tempted to bolt just to escape whatever Miles wants to say to him. He knows that face. That is a face that is not to be argued with. He doesn’t like that face.

Bass’s eyes flit to the front of the pack where Charlie rides, chatting comfortably with a pair of young warrior men. She laughs and Bass can just imagine how her often dour face brightens, his ears burning to hear what they’re saying. Are they flirting with her? Look at her, of course they’re flirting with her. More importantly, is she flirting back? He knows he has no right to be mad even if she is, but that doesn’t stop his jealous streak from flaring up. He’s always been a possessive son of a bitch.

He feels Miles’ glare on the side of his face, distracting him from the scene in front of him.

“Stop looking at her like that,” Miles says. When he speaks, it’s in a low tone just loud enough for Bass to hear but quiet enough not to reach the ears of their companions.

“Looking at who?” Bass tries his best to feign ignorance, but he has a feeling the borrowed time he’s been living on since the bombs hit has finally come to an end. Whatever Miles sees, he’s pissed about it. 

Maybe Bass is going to die at Miles’ hand after all, he thinks, though not for the reasons he might once have feared.

“Don’t play dumb, Bass. You think I haven’t noticed the way you look at Charlie? I’ve seen that look enough times to recognise it by now.” Bass’s heart is thudding heavy and hard in his chest. _It was just a matter of time._

Miles knows what happened in the woods that morning. He must. Maybe not the details – god, he better not know the details – but enough to be supremely pissed about it. 

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he continues. “Charlie? Of all people, Charlie? You’re a sick bastard, but I didn’t think you were that depraved. She’s young enough to be your daughter, Bass. Jesus, you actually have a kid who is older than her. She _dated_ your kid.” It’s almost cute, Miles calling whatever was between Charlie and Connor dating. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t that. 

“Shut up, Miles. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hisses, pressing his eyes shut. “There’s nothing going on between Charlie and me.” _Not anymore, judging by the fact that she won’t even look at me, that is._

“Obviously. She’d never be interested you. I know you can turn the charm on, but you can’t be that delusional. You’re the worst thing that ever happened to her. She’s smarter than that.”

He hates it, wants so badly to refute Miles, itches to throw a punch and get out their issues through violence like they always do, because the words hurt so much worse. But he can’t do those things, not this time. There’s no defending himself because everything Miles said is undeniably true. He’s responsible for virtually every bad thing that’s happened to Charlie in her short life and he’s been torturing himself with that knowledge for such a long time that it hardly matters, hearing Miles throw his own words back at him without even knowing it.

Miles seems to think that the things he’s saying are revelatory, meant to shame Bass into submission, like he hasn’t silently berated himself over this fantasy for months. If mental self-flagellation was going to work, it would have by now. 

Over and over in Willoughby he’d thought he was past her, past his pathetic, unrequited _want_ , and then he'd see her out of the corner of his eye carrying a bag of potatoes home from the market and it all came back even stronger than before. It had only been worse since they’d left Willoughby, having to look at that beautiful, expressive tanned face every single day.

But now… He’s tasted the proverbial forbidden fruit and there’s no forgetting now. No telling himself that he doesn’t care. 

Even if she decides to hate him again, there’s no moving backwards. While he doubts she’ll choose to proceed in the manner he’d prefer, he will heed whatever decision she makes. He respects her too much not to.

“You lay a hand on her and I promise you I’ll cut it off. You turn everything you touch to crap, Bass. You’re not going to do that to her. I won’t let you.” At least Miles seems unaware of their tryst that morning. Bass isn’t about to rectify that mistake. It would just make things a thousand times worse for him.

“You have nothing to worry about. Have you met Charlie? She hardly needs your protection. Besides, if you were so confident that she’s repulsed by me, you wouldn’t feel the need to make threats.” It’s an empty boast and Bass knows it. His voice deepens, menacing, as he hisses, “And you know that I would never force myself on her. That’s not who I am. I’m not interested in women who aren’t more than willing. Enthusiastic, even.”

“That’s not how Rachel tells it.” Miles looks like he wants to stab Bass in the throat, and a few of the puzzle pieces fall into place. Of course Rachel told him about what happened. What he did. Why wouldn’t she?

“Fucking Rachel. It always comes back to precious, innocent Rachel doesn’t it? Because she’s such a trustworthy person, nailing you behind your brother’s back for years. And you’re no better. How many times has she left you for him? If he was still alive, we both know who she’d choose.” Bass’s voice drips with bitterness. 

They’ve had so many conversations about her over the years, Miles turning to Bass for help - because who else could he talk to about his ongoing affair with his own brother’s wife? - and each discussion led to the same place: Miles lying prostrate at her feet while she ripped his heart out of his chest over and over again. Bass had known from the beginning that Rachel was bad news, but not once had Miles followed his advice.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, he’d liked Rachel Matheson. Thought she was a good person, but that was before he got to know her. Before he saw the way she treated the people around her, the way she toyed with Miles and Ben all those years. She thought she knew him, but she had no idea how well he knew her. 

“She’s my family, Bass. My family,” Miles says, and Bass knows that it’s not Rachel he’s talking about. “Just… keep it in your pants. Charlie’s not just another addition to the never ending parade of women flinging themselves at you.”

No. She’s not. She’s nothing like the girls who followed him around in Philly or New Vegas, looking for a tiny piece of the much-talked-about General Monroe, or his alias Jimmy King. There was nothing wrong with those girls, and Bass had more than enjoyed them at the time, but they’ve lost their appeal.

Bass doesn’t mention that he’s barely looked at another woman since he left New Vegas. He’s not sure how, but that piece of information would probably only make Miles angrier.

“She’s hardly flinging herself at me. Honestly, I thought you’d be happy to see her away from Connor.”

“I may not trust your kid, but I know firsthand how erratic you are. I’ve seen how you treat the women you sleep with. I’m not going to let you ruin her. She’s been hurt enough already.” 

He stares straight ahead, unable to look at Miles or respond to his words. He doesn’t want to hurt her, but he can feel them tearing each other apart already. 

The endless flat plains of Kansas unfold as far as the eye can see, nothing but untended farmland in every direction. Bass pictures his once-glorious home, the beauty he’d seen in every part of his city. He even misses the winters that never seemed to end, the deep snow that prevented his men from doing their duties for months on end. He tries not to think of the wasteland that sprawls in the place of the city he’d been so proud of, the absolute destruction wreaked by Randall’s bombs. The bombs he’d led Randall right to. 

He hasn’t returned to his Republic since the bombs dropped. He doesn’t think he can handle seeing what he did with his own ears. It’s bad enough hearing the stories.

“I think you should leave, Bass,” Miles says, pulling Bass’s attention back to him. “Once this battle is over, I think you should go. Honestly, I don’t know why you stuck around after the last of the Patriots were dealt with.” He doesn’t say what he really means: we’re better off without you. We don’t want you around, we never did. 

Hearing those words, hinted at for months but until now unspoken, is almost cathartic. It hurts, of course. He won’t let Miles see how deep those words cut, but if feels like being abandoned all over again. He wants to tell Miles that he’s wrong, that they need him as much as he needs them. But he’s had enough. He wants all of this drama to end, for things to go back to the way they once were, when it was Matheson and Monroe against the world. Before blackouts and militias and endless death and betrayal. Before Rachel Matheson and Nora Clayton and Shelly and the baby and keeping secrets from one another. Before Charlotte. 

Maybe not Charlotte.

But that’s not possible. There’s no going back to the way things were, so maybe it’s time to think about the way things will be.

He nods shallowly, afraid that if he opens his mouth pleas to stay will fall out. Maybe Miles is right. Hadn’t he wanted so many times before to leave them behind the minute they were done with the Patriots? So things hadn’t gone as planned with Connor. That didn’t mean he couldn’t make something of himself again. He’s _General Sebastian fucking Monroe_ , and if Miles doesn’t want him then fuck him. 

Maybe it’s time for him to go home, or as close to it as he can get. Find out what happened to the Republic in his absence. He doesn’t hold any delusions about regaining his power, only a burning curiosity.

Again he trains his eyes ahead, stolidly avoiding looking in Charlie’s direction. He hears Miles pull away, satisfied that Bass will do what’s been asked of him. 

It’s not until he’s certain that Miles has returned to his place in the procession that he allows his eyes to fall on the back of Charlie’s head, her multi-toned golden hair pulled into a thick braid at the nape of her neck. She’s so fucking beautiful. She could have any guy in the camp, any guy in the world, any girl too probably. She has so many options, and he is hands down the worst of the bunch. If he was superstitious he’d think he was cursed. He’s saddled down by so much baggage he can barely breathe under the crushing weight of it all, and the last thing Charlie needs is a forty-five year old albatross around her neck. 

He knows she knows it, too. Why else hasn’t she looked his way since she put her clothes on that morning? She regretted what happened between them, probably felt taken advantage of in a moment of weakness. He should never have followed her to that park, should never have asked her to stay, should never have pulled her down to him…

Yes, leaving seems like the logical next move. He’ll do it for Miles, and for Charlie, but mostly for himself.

 

The Lowery camp invasion is less a battle than a massacre. The attack from both sides of the camp, Bass’s half of the clan sneaking around the far side while Miles’ men enter en masse, slicing and shooting unrelentingly. It’s brutal, watching men and women fall, feeling their blood splattering over him as Bass swings his blade into them without remorse..

They don’t kill the children – Charlie was very clear on that order – but everyone else is fair game. It’s a bloodbath. 

Bass wipes his blade on a clean shirt hanging from a laundry line near the river, watching Charlie fighting off an enemy clansman on the other side of the camp. His body is filled with awareness of his surroundings, of any approaching enemies, but his eyes are focused on her. She’s more than holding her own; she’d been quick to pick up swordplay, though she would always be most comfortable with a crossbow and her knife. It didn’t hurt that Bass and Miles were excellent teachers. Bass sees the man lift his own blade, ramming the blunt side of it into Charlie’s unprotected hip. She stumbles, and the man lunges for her. Bass pulls his gun from its holster, but he can’t shoot the man, not from this far away, not before it’s too late. And then he hears the blast of a gun, and it’s not his. The man falls, and though he can’t see it from this distance he knows how hard Charlie’s heart is beating, how relief crashes over her, because he’s experienced that moment more times than he can count. Miles emerges from behind a tent, reaching for Charlie’s hand and pulling her up from the ground. 

The pit in Bass’s stomach grows heavier as he watches Charlie and Miles work together, watching each other’s backs as the battle continues around them. The bloodlust blocking every other thought from Bass’s mind as he fought empties out of him as he watches, bitterness returning to take its place. He can’t take his eyes off of them, even though it means he’s less wary of his own surroundings than he should be.

Miles was right. They don’t need him. Not really. The way they worked together, they could have done this without him. He’s just a loose cannon waiting to erupt and they all know it, more a hindrance than a boon to the tribe. He wishes he could justify his continued presence, but neither Miles nor Charlie have so much as glanced his way. His mind is already made up. They probably wouldn’t even notice if he slipped away right now, he thinks.

And maybe he should. Skip the goodbyes and just do as Miles told him. Slip away in the chaos of the battle. He doesn’t know what he’d do with himself once he’s gone, but that can come later. He can start with the basic objective of heading east. It’s the leaving that will be the hard part, harder still if he has to face Charlie again before he does it.

So he won’t. Tearing his eyes from two of the only people on the planet he actually cares about, the only two he hasn’t managed to kill yet, that is, he turns just in time to see an attack from one of the Lowery tribesmen before it happens. The man hurtles himself at Bass’s left side, ploughing into him with the force of his entire bodyweight. Bass falters for just a second, his breath leaving his chest all at once. He grapples for air under the weight of the other man, who moves to press his knee sharply into Bass’s stomach. His sword knocked from his hand, Bass reaches out to grip the hilt, just within reach. Channelling all his strength into his arm, he swings the blade up and into his assailant, knocking him off of him and scrambling back to his feet. The other man quickly follows suit, but Bass is prepared now. Without hesitating he plunges his sword into the man’s chest, kicking at the man with one foot to push him back off of the blade. 

He grabs another shirt off of the line to wipe the fresh blood from his sword, then turns and trudges through the mess of canvas tents and out of the camp. He doesn’t allow himself to look back, to think about what he’s leaving behind.

He’s barely a hundred feet outside of the camp when he’s hit from behind, a blunt object against his head. Before he can react, his vision darkens and the world around him turns black.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that I'm not entirely happy with, but I said I'd upload it today and damn it, I'm keeping my word (to myself)!

It takes Charlie approximately five minutes, after the fighting dies down, to notice the absence of one of her most important advisors. Though she hasn’t spoken to him since leaving the playground in the morning, she’s felt his eyes on her all day, following her protectively and making the tiny blonde hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She’s avoided his gaze, for fear that the very meeting of their equally fierce blue eyes might cause her to combust.

Stranger things have happened.

But now he’s not here, and she can feel it in every bone in her body, in the blood flowing through her veins. He’s gone.

She surveys the decimated camp sprawling before her. Bodies, dead and barely living alike, like scattered, bloodied and ruined as the day begins to grow darker, the blue sky turning to vivid streaks of orange and violet and pink. Angry flames lick up the side of one of the tents closest to the river. Her people mill about, a few walking about purposefully putting bullets into the heads of the suffering, friends and foes alike.

Charlie knows that there were casualties on their side too, men and women whose lives ended today, but that doesn’t nullify the thrill of the fact that this was undoubtedly a win. There is no Lowery clan left to speak of, just a handful of children huddled together that Charlie hasn’t decided what to do with. She feels a nudge of guilt seeing their tearstained faces, how they cling to one another and howl with grief that most of them don’t yet understand. She wishes there was another way, something she could do to spare them this pain, and though she tries not to dwell on it, she can’t help thinking of the rebel children in the Republic. This isn’t the same thing, she promises herself. Though the brand on her wrist might say otherwise, she is not Militia, she’s not like them.

The rush of battle begins to fade, her pulse slowing, and Charlie notices for the first time the extent of her injuries. She’s been sliced open a few times, a gash across her forearm, more than a handful of bruises making themselves known across her torso and legs and back, a smear of blood and dirt across her hand when she wipes her forehead from a shallow cut above one eyebrow. God, she’s sore. Her muscles scream with every movement, the post-battle exhaustion begging to settle in the moment she stops to rest.

“Miles,” she shouts. She last saw him near the camp’s entrance, so she moves in that direction.

He appears, sword in hand, from within a small, still-standing tent, munching on a ripe apple.

She nods toward his bloody sword, “You can probably put that away.”

As he sheathes his blade, he takes another large bite of apple, juice dribbling down his chin. Charlie’s stomach lets out a loud, abrasive growl.

“Hungry?” Miles ducks back into the tent, Charlie following close behind as he produces another apple from a crate filled with them. “Fighting and fucking: the two things that always make me tired and starving,” he says.

Charlie shoots him an irritated glare.

“Boundaries, right,” he laughs.

The tent houses what must have been the bulk of the Lowery food supply – dried meat hanging from hooks, bags of grains and rice piled high, fresh and dried fruit of more varieties than Charlie has seen in one place since Sylvania Estates. Her stomach growls again, louder, and Charlie takes the apple from Miles.

“Thanks. I’m not here for food though. Monroe’s missing. You seen him?”

“Not since we split up. You worried?”

“Should I be?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if he used the fighting to sneak off. That’s kind of his M.O.” Miles shrugs nonchalantly and Charlie’s shoulders loosen a bit. If Miles isn’t worried, she shouldn’t be either. Monroe is a big boy, he can take care of himself. Still…

“He seemed… I don’t know, invested in this. Didn’t seem like he’d just drop everything and leave.” She doesn’t think about his skin against hers, his laboured breath against her hair as he’d thrust into her again and again. Why would he leave after that? Had fucking her been so bad that he’d had to leave just so that they wouldn’t have to face each other again? But no, it definitely hadn’t been bad. Not for her, and she’s sure she’d have noticed if it had been bad for him. The weight of his eyes on her in the hours between camps hadn’t been that of a man who’d been unsatisfied by a bad lay.

“He might be injured somewhere.” Or dead, she thinks. She can’t bring herself to voice that possibility aloud.

“I’m sure he’d fine, Charlie. He’s always fine.” Miles gestures to the abundance of food before them. “Let’s just get this food packed up and see if he turns up.”

They find a bunch of burlap sacks and begin dumping food into them to take back to camp. By the time they’ve filled the sacks and emerge from the tent, the sky is dark and clear, filled with bright stars. The fire on the far side of camp has been extinguished, replaced with a burning pile of the dead. Charlie forces herself to watch, silent and stilled, as they burn, until once again she feels hollow and guiltless. Until her heart no longer wrenches, her eyes no longer sting with tears.

The quiet of late-October night has settled heavy in the air by the time they leave the camp to ride back home. Home, Charlie thinks. Her home. Not Willoughby, not Sylvania Estates, not anymore. If someone had told the Charlie who left Sylvania Estates in search of her brother that she’d one day be the leader of a war clan, that she’d see her clan’s camp as her rightful home, she’d have laughed until she was blue in the face. If Danny could only see her now. She hopes he’d be proud, that he wouldn’t condemn her for the things she’s done and the people she’s killed. There is nothing tying her to the places she might once have considered home. No, everything she needs, everything she wants, is here in Kansas. At least, it was.

 

They arrive back to camp late at night and Charlie collapses into her bed without even removing her boots, fast asleep within a few seconds. When she wakes the next morning, Monroe is still nowhere to be found. She knows it in her gut the moment she tumbles into consciousness, sleep still crusted in the corners of her eyes. Weariness cuts her to her core even as she wakes, but much as she’d like to she cannot go back to sleep. She has things to do, people to account for. Leading a war clan is so much harder than she ever imagined. She yearns for a drink, to lighten the weight of her heavy, stiff bones. 

Still dressed in yesterday’s bloody clothes, she finds Miles in his tent speaking with a girl with hair the colour of dishwater. She can’t be older than seven or eight, Charlie guesses, wondering what this child could possibly want with her uncle.

“I’ll see what I can do. If not today, tomorrow. Promise.” Miles pushes his greasy hair back with one big hand, scratching his scalp as his fingers pass over it. As she approaches, it occurs to Charlie that she probably smells as ripe as he does, well overdue for a bath.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Charlie says, and the unexpected sound of her voice sends the skittish child behind Miles’ legs, hiding. He steps to one side, bewildered, but the girl’s hand catches his and clings to it as he exposes her to his niece.

“I-I-I…” the girl stutters, fear knocking the words right out of her.

Charlie grins, though when the child stiffens further she realizes that her smile might be disarming in a different way than it once had been. 

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” she says. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Charlie. What’s your name?”

The girl, still gripping Miles’ much-larger hand like without it she won’t survive this moment, looks up at Miles with wide, frightened eyes. His face says to Charlie what the fuck is happening right now? but he doesn’t try to shake her off, instead nodding in reassurance.

“Sophie.” Charlie has to strain to make out the tiny voice.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sophie. Would it be okay if I borrowed Miles from you for a second? I’ll give him right back.” She grins at Miles, who looks like this is a scene from one of his worst nightmares.

The girl nods, silent, reluctantly relinquishing Miles’ hand and edging towards the tent’s entrance, careful not to turn her back on Charlie. She disappears through the flap and Charlie can no longer contain her laughter.

“You should see your face right now,” she gasps. The exertion makes her ribs hurt, but once she’s started she can’t seem to stop.

Miles rolls his eyes, regaining the nonchalant pretence of being impervious to needy children and incontrollable bouts of laughter. Charlie slumps onto Miles’ bed, trying to breathe evenly. With her breath finally under control, she asks what the little girl could possibly have wanted to talk to Miles about.

“She’s one of the kids taken from Copan. Her brother was killed in the raid the other night. I didn’t put two and two together until we got back, so I asked her to come have a chat about going home. Bass and I met her parents – they’ll be devastated to hear what happened, but at least they’ll get one kid back.”

 

“You want to take her home? Now? You can’t just leave to return one little kid to her parents. I need you here right now.”

“Doesn’t have to be me. I just want to see her get home in one piece before things go to shit even more around here. This is only the beginning. You know that, Charlie?”

It’s daunting to think about how many other tribes lay between them and securing Texas’ border, so Charlie decides not to think about it. She lives in the here and now. There’s no use in worrying about the future when you aren’t sure if you’ll make it to tomorrow.

“I know.” She reaches over the end of the bed, pulling Miles’ pack up onto the bed next to her and rummaging through it.

“The hell are you doing?” He snatches it away from her before she finds what she’s looking for.

“I need a goddamn drink. Is that a problem? You’re usually a good place to look,” she says, her jaw set and her words steely.

“Ever heard of asking?” He doesn’t mention that it’s barely eight o’clock, for which Charlie is grateful.

Tears strain at Charlie’s eyes, and when Miles sees that she’s about to start crying he digs urgently through his bag, producing a half-full bottle of whiskey. She tries to thank him, but the lump in her throat makes the words come out as an abbreviated squeak. Miles pours alcohol into two short metal cups, handing one to Charlie and holding his own up in an unspoken toast. Charlie mimics his movement, then tilts the cup to her lips and swallows the contents in a few quick, searing gulps.

“I didn’t want to ask, but you’re practically an afterschool special. Your mother really wouldn’t approve of my influence in this case. What’s going on, kid?”

Charlie lets the silence sprawl between them as she gets up to refill her cup. She needs to think about how to phrase the problem without alerting Miles to things she’d rather he not know.

“I’m worried. He should be back by now,” she finally settles on.

“He’s fine, Charlie. How many times has he vanished on us before just to turn up a few days later, totally unscathed?” She wants to find Miles’ words reassuring, but something inside her protests.

“But… something just feels wrong.” Charlie can’t articulate it, but she knows that this isn’t just another betrayal. She can’t believe that. Not now.

“I know Bass. He’ll turn up. And if he doesn’t, it’s because he didn’t want to. Is that such a tragedy?”

Charlie doesn’t know what to say to that. Yes, she thinks. Yes, it would be a fucking tragedy. She spent so much time waiting for him to leave, to betray them again, that she thought she’d guarded herself enough not to care, but now that he’s gone it hurts as much as if she’d been completely blindsided.

“I’m sending out a search party. If he’s not back by nightfall, I’m going back and I’m looking for him.”

“Charlie-“

“I’m going to find him. And if I don’t, at least I can say that I tried.” She swallows another mouthful of whiskey, her voice beginning to shake. “He looked for you. When you were missing, he didn’t have to look for you, but he did. The least we can do is offer him the same.”

“I was trapped. I didn’t just leave.”

“We don’t know that he did. He might be worse off than you were. It’s not up for discussion, Miles. My mind is made up. If he’s not back, we leave at first light tomorrow.” Charlie is the leader of this clan, not Miles, and in this camp her word trumps his. She can do whatever the fuck she wants, whether he likes it or not. If he disagrees, he’s welcome to leave. She’d rather he didn’t, but she’s not going to make important decisions based on Miles’ approval.

 

Unsurprisingly, Monroe still has not appeared as the moon rises in the clear night sky, so Charlie sends word to the search parties she’s assembled that they will be leaving first thing the next morning. Another two riders are given orders to return the little girl to her parents in Charlie’s absence. There are other things that need to be attended to, there always are, but this… It may be stupid, but Charlie knows that if she doesn’t put Monroe at the top of her priority list, she’ll regret it.

She spends the night tossing and turning on her cot. Her mind won’t slow down enough to let sleep come over her, so she lays in the dark listening to the rustling night sounds of the camp and trying not to worry.

All she can think of is Monroe. Bass. The name sounds strange to her even in her head, too familiar for whatever they are. Were. Might be.

Her legs itch to leave her bed, to walk over to his tent just to peer in, to make sure that he’s not asleep in his own bed across the camp from hers. She knows he’s not there, that someone would have told her if he’d been found, but in the absence of sleep her logical faculties are suspect.

If she’s honest, she can see why he might have wanted to leave. She doesn’t want to believe it, that he’d disappear without a word of farewell, but the tension between him and Miles hasn’t gone unnoticed by her. The way she’d acted when she’d left the park, and later on couldn’t have helped give him reason to stay.

Miles and Monroe had been okay in Willoughby. Distant, but they’d tolerated each other. Monroe had been by their side since they’d kidnapped Davis, and it was clear even to Charlie that he’d had something to prove.

He was still Monroe, of course: trigger happy, prone to jumping to the worst case scenario. That part of him would probably never change. But he’d been trying to play by someone else’s rules, toeing the line. Maybe power had gone to his head in the Republic, made him into a murderous tyrant, but without it he was just a sad, lonely man full of guilt and regret.

And Charlie doesn’t know of anyone who doesn’t live with the burden of regret. Hard decisions have to be made, and the outcomes aren’t always ideal. 

She wishes she knew what caused the rift between Miles and Monroe. She knows parts of their story – that they’d once been best friends, that they’d ruled the Republic together until something made Miles leave and Monroe lose his mind. She can slide the pieces together, but she can’t quite make them fit together. There’s too much of their history that is missing to her.

Charlie rolls onto her stomach, burying her face in her cool, flat pillow. She lets out a muffled scream of frustration. 

She just had to fucking sleep with him. She just had to make things complicated and messy and even tenser than they’d been before. She hates him so much for making her feel so goddamn helpless.

But until morning comes, there’s nothing she can do. 

 

The ride is shorter than it had been before, both due to familiarity with the route and to fewer riders, and they get to the former Lowery camp in just under three hours. Charlie orders the four trackers to pair up to look for clues to Monroe’s whereabouts. She and Miles, communicating for the past twenty-four hours in little more than curt nods and prolonged meaningful eye contact, head north along the banks of the river without speaking. There’s no sign of Monroe anywhere but with so little to go on, one guess is as good as the next.

After nearly an hour of walking and not a single trace of anything, Charlie’s eyes are beginning to sting with desperation. She needs to find something. Anything. Something to tell her that he’s still alive, that he’s out there. She wants to curse and scream and cry all at once, but she can’t do any of those things.

They stop for a drink of water and when Charlie stands to resume their fruitless search, brushing the dust from the ass of her jeans unsuccessfully, Miles doesn’t join her. The sun is now high in the sky above them and Charlie’s forehead is soaked and tacky with sweat.

“He’s not here, kid. We need to go back,” Miles says, wiping sweat from his own brow and taking another swig from his waterskin.

“You don’t get to give up on him, Miles.” Charlie whips around to face her uncle, hands on hips and fierce determination written across her face. She can see the secrets on Miles' face, but she can't read what he keeps hidden close to his chest. She wants answers, but she can't bear to ask the questions. “Not again. Not now.”

“Why are you so set on finding him? He sure as hell wouldn’t do the same for you.” Miles doesn’t meet her eyes as he stands, his shoulders slumped. All she sees when she looks at him is weariness and a wall that she is too tired to climb over. She wishes she could acquiesce, turn around and forget about this futile search, but her gut won’t let her. He’s out there, she’s positive.

“Wouldn’t he? You say that he hasn’t changed, but when have you given him a chance to prove he has? Hasn't he been loyal for months?” She pauses, digging the toe of her boot in the dirt bank of the river. “I trust him, Miles. Almost as much as I trust you.”

She fingers the loose tail of her braid, slung over her shoulder, as she avoids looking at her uncle. Because it’s true. She wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but she does trust Monroe. And he wouldn’t just walk away. He and Miles are similar in so many ways, but in that they differ. Walking away is Miles’ response to problems, not Monroe’s.

“Why the change of heart? He’s not a good person, Charlie.”

“No, he isn't. But are any of us _good_? I forgave you. I forgave mom. Why can’t I forgive him? Why can’t you?”

“Your mom and I – that’s different. We’re trying, really trying to do the right thing. Bass doesn’t even care to see the difference between right and wrong. We’re the good guys.”

Charlie pierces Miles with a steely gaze. “There are no good guys anymore.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Don’t you? I thought I was supposed to be the naïve one.”

He doesn’t say anything, but starts walking in the direction from which they came.

“Hey!” Charlie yells, her anger coming out in a short burst. “Come back here!”

“I’m going back, Charlie. We’re not going to find him, at least not here.”

“Miles, please,” her voice is hoarse and quiet, tears threatening at her eyes again. She rushes to his side, grabbing hold of his sleeve and pulling him around to look at her.

“Remember the train? How Monroe wanted to take it to DC and hit the Patriots at home?” She stares straight into his closed, pinched face. “I didn’t say anything, but I agreed with him. If it hadn’t been empty… if he’d been able to do it, wouldn’t it have been a good thing? How many people did we lose fighting the Patriots? How is what we did for Blanchard any better than what Monroe wanted?”

“It wouldn’t have worked. Innocent people would have died.” His reply comes too quickly for him to even have considered what she actually said. He heard her say that Monroe might have been right for once and he’d stopped listening.

“Innocent people will _always_ die, Miles! We can’t save everybody, remember?”

“Never said we could.”

“You just can’t admit that you were wrong, can you? The Miles I met in Chicago was a dick, but at least he was honest about it. Now you’re just a hypocrite. We’re not good. You and mom, you were never the good guys. You were just guilty. We didn’t do any of that to save Willoughby or Texas or anyone else, I don't care what you say. We saved ourselves.” Charlie turns her back on Miles, hiding the tears that are falling down her sun-parched cheeks.

“Charlie,” Miles starts to say something, but trails off.

“Fine. You don’t want to look for him, you don’t have to. Go back to your precious Willoughby if you want. I don’t care. I’m going to find Monroe, with or without your help.” It’ll be harder without him, but she’ll manage.

“Charlie. I’m not just going to leave you. But this is a dead end. We can try again, follow a different path and see if we find anything. Rendezvous with the others, see if they have any leads.” He’s humouring her. She’s breaking down so he’s humouring her, telling her what she wants to hear. She recognizes what it is, but she’ll take what she can get.

“But I have to ask – why are you so set on getting him back? Bass is more than capable of taking care of himself. You weren't this upset about losing Aaron, and he's afraid of bees and little kids. What's going on?” Miles rests a gentle hand on her shoulder and her posture relaxes at the contact. She turns into him, wrapping herself in his arms in a deep, comforting hug.

“He wouldn’t have left without telling me. He just wouldn’t,” she murmurs into his shirt before her voice catches. It’s not just Monroe she’s crying for. It’s everyone she’s lost, everyone she’s left behind, everything she’s done piling on top of her and crushing violent sobs from her vice-like chest. To his credit, Miles doesn’t pull away. He lets her cry into him, holding her until her tears abate and she can compose herself again. On the way back to camp, he doesn’t ask any more questions.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many apologies for going two whole weeks without posting! RL has been giving me all of the crap and writing unfortunately fell to the bottom of the priority list.
> 
> Un-beta'd as usual. I'm sure there will be a few things I've missed in there...

A man is waiting in her tent when Charlie steps inside, ready to dive onto her cot and into a fitful, well-earned sleep. Instead, she drops into the rickety chair next to the flimsy, shoddily crafted table to the other side of the small room, casting a longing glance towards her bed. She gestures for the man to sit in the chair opposite hers, and he gratefully does.

“Speak,” she says, picking at the dirt crusted under her nails.

“My brother and I were assigned to take Sophie home this afternoon. There were no issues in our delivery and the girl made it back to her parents in one piece. They were pretty pissed, you know, that we’d taken her in the first place, but that was just because we did what Hawthorne said. If he wanted you to grab a kid, you didn’t ask questions. You just did it.” He’s speaking too quickly, his words bleeding into each other. He can’t be older than sixteen. How did this acne-ridden kid end up on a mission? Surely Charlie hadn’t chosen him for the task. He scratched at an angry red pimple on his cheek nervously, still talking. Charlie’s completely lost his train of speech, so she interrupts him, holding up a hand.

“What’s your name?”

“Chris.” He stumbles for a second, trying to recollect his own name. He’s scared shitless. Is everyone in this camp scared of her? Hers wasn’t exactly a friendly takeover, but she hadn’t thought herself especially terrifying, given what they’d likely faced before.

“Chris, get to the point.” She’s too tired to listen to him ramble on all night.

“Right. Right, on the way back we decided to take a longer route around Liberty – it’s a little town southeast of here. Dylan – my brother – he knows a girl there and he wanted to see her while he had the chance. But when we got there Liberty’d been ransacked. Barely anything left. We didn’t see them, but it was pretty clear it didn’t happen all too long ago, and they headed south when they were finished.”

“They?”

“Whatever clan fucked – sorry, screwed with Liberty. Dylan said it was probably the Underwood clan or Haley’s crew. Anyway, we got back here as quick as we could because Dylan said you’d want to know as soon as possible. I’ve been waiting here since you got back, and I have to piss something fierce.” He picks at the acne scars around his mouth as he talks and Charlie wants to swat his hands away from his face the way Maggie used to do when she and Danny were teenagers. 

“You’re free to leave.” She waits for him to leave before letting out a loud, low groan. She’s too fucking tired to deal with this right now. It can wait until the morning, she decides as she tugs off her boots and strips her jeans and socks down, yelling to Rick that she’s going to sleep and doesn’t want to be disturbed until the morning, under any circumstances. She collapses onto her cot like it’s a queen-sized feather bed, and is asleep practically before her eyes even close.

 

A group of ten leaves camp at midday, riding south towards the border and the clan threatening it. After a long morning of arguing back and forth, Charlie agreed to Miles’ request that they go down with the intention of negotiating for the other tribe to head back into their own territory. 

Charlie would be more comfortable with a repeat of what they did to the Lowery clan, but even after a few hours of sleep she is too tired to stand her ground with her usual steadfastness. She yields to Miles, with the stipulation that if anything so much as smells like it might be going sideways, they’ll start shooting and won’t stop until every member of the other clan is dead.

“You’re Rick’s girl, aren’t you?” Charlie says, pulling alongside a tall, thin girl near her own age. “Elise, was it?”

“Eliza.” The girl snaps. Her dark curls spill loose over her shoulders, and she tosses them back haughtily as she spurs her horse on. “Eliza, ma’am.” The chilly tone betrays the formality of the language and Charlie lets out a laugh.

“Do I look like a ma’am to you?” She asks, squeezing her legs against the flanks of her horse to urge him to keep pace with Eliza. “Your dad said you’re a good warrior. I’m glad to have you here.”

“He must think pretty highly of himself then. He’s the one who trained me.” Eliza’s voice is still cool, but slightly less blistering.

“You don’t have the same accent as your dad. How come?” Charlie hates small talk, but if she’s going to be on the road for the next few hours she’d rather chat about nothing with Eliza than endure more of Miles’ grumbling.

“He’s from Australia. Moved here before I was born.”

“And your mom?”

“Who knows? She left when I was two. Dad doesn’t talk about her. I don’t ask.” She speaks with a clipped edge, never looking directly in Charlie’s direction, and Charlie gets the feeling that her presence is irritating her.

“You didn’t want to come on this mission, huh?”

“What gave it away?”

“I don’t know, your winning attitude? You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to be here. There are a dozen places I’d rather be right now too.” Namely searching for Monroe before the bastard dies on me.

“Then why are we doing this? You’re the one in charge, don’t you say what you do with your time?” Eliza runs her fingers through her curls and turns her face towards Charlie. She’s beautiful, all thick lashes and large dark eyes over a wide nose and plump lips. A scar running down her left cheekbone mars her otherwise flawless dark complexion. She looks a lot like her father, Charlie thinks, only younger and infinitely prettier.

“If only it were that simple. I may not have to take orders, but I do have to do the best thing for the camp. And right now, that’s going down to this clan and talking them out of ambushing any of the border towns.” She doesn’t mention Miles’ and Bass’s contract with Blanchard. That’s best kept between the three of them. Two of them.

“Whatever,” Eliza says, turning back towards the flat road ahead of them and rubbing her horse’s neck affectionately.

They ride in silence for a few moments before Charlie can’t take it anymore.

“So how long have you been with the clan? Have you lived in the Plains Nation since the Blackout?”

“No. We’ve been here since I was ten, so almost ten years now. I don’t remember much from before then. We traveled around a lot. Texas, Georgia, back to Texas. It sucked.”

“Yeah, from what I can tell everywhere sucked. It wasn’t exactly a picnic in the Republic. I spent most of my childhood being cold and hungry and scared shitless.” Most of those early years before her family settled down in Sylvania Estates are a blur to Charlie, just tiny snippets of memory – the smell of smoke, the rattle of the little wagon her parents had pulled her and Danny in, the feel of Danny’s sweaty little palm enclosed in her own. Gunfire, loud and terrifying. She remembers a lot of crying, everywhere they went. They were plagued by tears, it seemed, as strong as they all tried to be.

“Do you remember what it was like before the lights went out?” Eliza asks, glancing again in Charlie’s direction. Her face softens for just a moment, her eyes hopeful.

“Not really. I remember ice cream and watching cartoons, but not much else. Nothing that matters. You?”

“Nah. I was two when the Blackout happened. You’re lucky.”

Charlie lets the lull in the conversation expand as they continue down the road, the silence filled in with the sound of hooves on the pebbly road and the idle chatter of the men and women nearby. She offers Eliza a half-smile, but she isn’t sure she agrees with the girl. Sometimes she wishes she’d been born after the Blackout. This is the only world she’s ever really known, but those tiny memories of before – they cut so deeply with the possibility of what her life could have been. And now, with all she knows… about her parents, about Danny and what her mom did to save him. It’s too hard to think about.

 

Gunfire rings in Charlie’s ears as she ducks down to retrieve her knife from the chest of a middle-aged woman. She yanks it out and is sprayed by blood as it rushes out of the dying woman’s wound. The woman reaches for her, wrapping her fingers around the end of Charlie’s braid in a futile struggle to bring down her own murderer in her last moments. Charlie slashes her knife across the woman’s throat, her mouth set in a firm line as more blood hits her. Her only regret is that she’ll never be able to wear this shirt again – blood stains are a bitch to get rid of, no matter how hard you scrub.

She scrambles up, bracing herself as another pair of Haley’s crew – a man in his late forties, she guesses, alongside a kid who can’t be older than fifteen – approaches, weapons drawn.

“Get down!” Someone shouts, and she can only hope that she’s the one the order was meant for as she crouches back down. Two bullets fly through the space that was just occupied by her body and embed themselves into the man and the teenager, who topple instantly. Charlie glances back, braid swinging, and bestows a dimpled grin upon her newest friend. Eliza grins back, holding the flap of the tent open for Charlie.

They’d tried diplomacy. It hadn’t worked.

Charlie never did play so well with others.

The whole diplomacy farce never would have gotten off the ground if Monroe was there. He’d have laughed right in Miles’ face and convinced Charlie of a much better plan. A plan that didn’t avoid getting held at gunpoint in a tent filled with their enemies.

She knew things weren’t going to go smoothly the minute she met Rebecca Haley. Something about the way she moved said that she wasn’t going to just roll over and do as she was told. The swagger of her hips, maybe, or the long, confident strides she took towards her visitors. She was the kind of person whose authority was above reproach or question.

Haley couldn’t have been older than thirty-five, but she had an air of ultimate supremacy to her like she was an immortal being. If they weren’t at odds, Charlie had a feeling they might have gotten along splendidly. In a way, she almost reminded Charlie of Nora. It would be a shame to kill her, she thought as they shook hands.

Kill her she did, though. A bullet through the brain from her own gun, wrestled away from her. One little threat was all the incentive Charlie needed to start the killing spree she’d been craving all day.

Charlie and Eliza follow the sound of gunfire and anguished cries toward the thick of the battle. Considering there were only ten members of the Matheson clan present, Charlie is incredibly pleased with the damage they’ve wreaked. It’s wrong to be so happy in the face of such destruction, she knows that, but it doesn’t stop the giddiness from bubbling up in her chest. She can barely keep the joyful, murderous grin off of her face.

“Behind me,” she whispers to Eliza, skirting around to the entrance of a large tent. There’s no telling what lies inside, and a shiver of anticipation runs down her back. She holds her gun before her at the ready as she whips open the flap and investigates the room with a quick scan of her eyes. Nothing. She tries not to seem too disappointed as she backs out of the room, but when Eliza catches her eye a current of understanding passes between them.

Charlie has finally found a girl whose thirst for blood matches her own. She didn’t know how much she’d wanted – needed - a friend.

They move quickly but cautiously, careful not to let anyone sneak up on them. Charlie’s used to pairing up with Miles or Monroe in combat, but she was still mad at Miles for being an idiot and suggesting that they try to talk it out with Haley in the first place. Besides, she and Eliza seemed to make a great team so far. Her new friend couldn’t read her effortlessly in battle, couldn’t communicate detailed plans in nothing more than prolonged eye contact the way that Monroe could, but that wasn’t something that could be found just anywhere. She could make do.

The sounds of battle begin to fade as Charlie’s team pick off the remaining members of the Haley clan one by one. It’s going around afterwards, surveying the bodies, that’s the hard part. By then the thrill of battle is gone and she’s left with an empty, gaping wound where her heart should be. She feels the familiar hollowness settling over her; the heaviness of her limbs has nothing to do with the exertion of fighting. It’s time to get back to camp. She itches to be alone, to let someone else give the orders for just a few minutes. Give someone else the burden of responsibility.

But no. Charlie is the leader of the Matheson clan. That’s the way she’d wanted it, and she isn’t about to hand over the reins to anyone, no matter how bone-tired she grows.

So she has to wait until they get back to camp, hours later as the sun is beginning to set once again and a whole day of searching for Monroe has been wasted, before she can seek out the solace of her own company. Charlie realizes when they get back to camp that as much as she’s been avoiding Miles since collapsing against his chest the day before, he’s been distracted too. He hasn’t even tried to talk to her about what happened, about her breakdown. She’s grateful, but suspicious. Of what, she’s not sure.

She tells Rick, who refuses to leave her side, that she’s going to bathe in the river before heading to bed, then slips away into the forest instead. The tall trees block out the little sunlight still illuminating the sky and Charlie walks onward aimlessly, cloaked in darkness. It’s probably stupid to be out here alone in the night, but she doesn’t care. It’s the first time she’s been alone – really alone – since the morning she and Monroe had sex. The same day that he disappeared.

She finds herself stepping into the clearing that houses the playground, unaware that she’d been leading herself there – that she even remembered how to get there. In the time it took for her to travel from the lake to the playground, the sun has set, the full, bright moon taking its place in the sky. She’s always admired the stars, even after Aaron and his books taught her that they weren’t the magical pieces of light she’d believed them to be when she was young. They glowed so bright that even though she was alone, she could never find herself lonely in their company. Even if no one else was, the stars would always be there for her. They weren’t going anywhere.

She crosses the moonlit space, revelling in the silence surrounding her. Quiet is hard to come by in camp, and though she doesn’t miss her old life in Sylvania Estates, she does miss the ability to sneak off and enjoy the stillness of the forest every now and then. The past few weeks since she took over the clan have been some of the hardest of her life. They don’t compare to the agony of losing Danny, of holding her father as he died, but the weight hanging over her head, constantly threatening to fall on her like the anvil on the bird in those old cartoons she clings to the memory of, eats away at her day by day. She tries to sleep the exhaustion away, but every day she wakes as weary as she was the day before.

She could blame Monroe’s disappearance for the heaviness in her bones, but she knows that it’s deeper than that. She’s been feeling this way for a long time, even before she came here. She felt it, lighter but still present, back in Willoughby. The restlessness she’d endured in Willoughby had been replaced by the burden of fear – she tried to be tough, to be the monster she proclaimed herself to be, but hidden away was a scared little girl who just wanted someone to cling to, to tell her what to do. But she’s strong now. She doesn’t need people like Miles or Monroe ordering her around. She can be the one to give the orders, even when she doesn’t want to.

But that also means she has to be the one to deal with the consequences.

She has to bite down the wave of sickness that overtakes her when she thinks about how many deaths she has caused – at her own hands or at those of her clanspeople – in just the past two weeks. She wanted all of, ached for the spilling of blood, to put them in their place. But that doesn't make the shame that washes over her any more bearable. Just when she keels over, about to spew the dark stain on her soul onto the ground, she hears a soft, pained moan. 

Peering through the dim light and walking toward the playground, her eyes don’t make out anything – anyone – until the toe of her boot collides with his pale, bare back and he lets out a tortured yelp. Tears spring into her eyes as they recognise the figure crumpled before her. He’s barely recognizable, bloody and broken in the tall grass, but she’d know that hair, those eyes, that body anywhere.

Bass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter was a bitch to write and it feels a tad filler-y to me, but I promise these things will all be important later on and I'm REALLY looking forward to writing the next chapter! 
> 
> Please comment and tell me all of your thoughts! I love every one of you so so much <3


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has had VERY little editing, so take it for what it is... I've said it before, but my writing time has been extremely limited lately & this story has turned into a bit of a pain in the butt (in the best possible way, I promise!). Thank you for your patience with my sporadic updates!

He’s heavier than he looks, and carrying him all the way back to camp is a challenge that Charlie hadn’t anticipated for the night. She’s sweating and cursing profusely by the time she makes it one of the outlying tents, shouting for help and trying to prop Bass up despite his apparent desire to fall in a heap on the ground.

“Stay upright, you stupid shit,” she hisses. He’s been in and out of consciousness for the duration of the journey, though it’s hard to tell when he passes from one state to the other. He lets out the occasional mumble, but Charlie can’t tell what he’s trying to say to her or if he even knows who she is.

The inhabitants of the tent – a middle-aged man and his teenage son – answer her calls, and she shifts some of Bass’s weight to the dirty-haired man. Was his name Dan? Stan? It doesn’t matter.

“Here, let me.” The boy steps in front of her, gesturing for her to let him take her place to Bass’s left, but she shakes her head. Her mouth won’t form the words she needs to tell him that there is no way in hell she’s letting go of Bass Monroe right now.

“We need Miles,” is all she can think to say, ploughing forward and hoping that Dan will follow suit. All through her long walk through the forest, Charlie forced herself not to think about what might have happened to Bass, what could have left him in this sorry, decrepit state. She was too focused on the aching in her muscles and the need to just continue putting one foot in front of the other. She was careful to keep the jostling to a minimum, as she couldn’t bear to listen to the low moans of pain he let out whenever he was moved in certain ways. Getting him back to camp was her only goal, the mantra repeated over and over in her mind.

But with half of his weight on someone else’s shoulders, Charlie feels her guilt and fear begin to build. She is responsible for this. If she’d been paying attention.. if it hadn’t taken her so long to notice he’d gone missing. If she’d looked harder. Three days. Just three days, and he looks like any minute death itself will confront him and beckon him into the afterlife. Charlie won’t allow that.

The trek from the outside of camp to Miles’ tent is a blur, Charlie so captivated by her own thoughts that she barely notices her own surroundings. It isn’t until she hears Miles’ voice that she is brought back to reality. When she doesn’t let him take her side of Bass, Miles’ takes Dan’s place and sends the other man to find a doctor, or anyone with any kind of medical experience. He and Charlie haul Bass into the tent and onto Miles’ cot inelegantly. Even with Miles’ help, his deadweight isn’t easy to lift.

“What the hell happened to him?” Miles asks, unable to tear his eyes from his battered friend.

“How would I know? I went for a walk and I just found him like this. I told you – I told you he wouldn’t have left on his own!”

“Hey, he’ll be fine. He’s been in worse shape.”

“Maybe when he was running a Republic and had access to whatever medical supplies and doctors he wanted. I don’t know what to do.” Her voice breaks and she stares down at her boots. 

"He'll be fine, Charlie." Miles places a tentative hand on Charlie's shoulder and every muscle in her body wants to shrug it off, but she resists. He's trying to help. "Just let him sleep. He'll be fine."

"Do you have a medical degree I don't know about? Does he look like he's fine?"

"Kid, just wait for the doctor. We don't know how bad it is. It could just be surface wounds."

"Or it could be more than that."

"Go to bed, Charlie. There's nothing for you to do here."

"Are you fucking kidding me? You think I can sleep right now? He could be dying, Miles!"

"Okay, what the hell is going on between you two?"

She reels back like she's been struck across the face.

"What are you talking about?"

"You. Bass. I know you don't want him around just because he's a joy to be around. He's more of a dick than me most of the time."

"Pretty sure you're the dick-ish one right now," Charlie mumbles.

"Not to mention the fact that he killed Ben and Danny."

"Don’t drag them into this. We're all responsible for more than our share of deaths. I'm well aware what part Bass played in my dad and Danny's deaths. I was there."

"Bass? You're calling him Bass now?"

Charlie concentrates on keeping her face straight. She hadn't even noticed that she stopped referring to him by his last name. Skipped right over to his nickname in one fell step. Fuck. She crosses to the fire burning low in the middle of the tent, turning her back on her uncle. She can feel a blush burgeoning on her cheeks and hopes he doesn't notice.

"He didn't... do something to you, right?"

"God, no!" She whips around, appalled at the suggestion. "He... I... I don't want to talk about it." She blinks back tears and swallows the lump in her throat. This is neither the time nor the place for whatever discussion Miles wants to have with her.

"Okay. Just... go to bed, okay?"

"Fine. You'll watch him? And get me if he wakes up?" She knows she won't be able to sleep, but it's worth at least trying. He's right - there's nothing she can do to help him, at least not yet.

"Promise."

Charlie nods and makes her way back to her tent, dazed and a little delirious. She passes Dan escorting a woman hurriedly towards Miles' tent and hopes that the woman will be able to do something to fix Bass. Monroe. Whoever he is.

 

She wakes up late the next morning, not even realising that she'd managed to fall asleep. Her arms and legs cramp up when she pushes herself off of her cot and every muscle screams as she stretches her limbs. Still dressed in yesterday's bloodstained clothes she hurries through the bustling camp back towards Miles' tent.

"Is he awake?" She asks, lifting the doorflap.

The woman she'd seen the night before, a thin brunette with severe eyebrows, lifts her head to see who came to bother her.

"Sorry. Continue what you're doing." Charlie charges across the room, coming to stand next to the woman, who is stitching up a gash on Bass's stomach. Charlie cringes at the sight of the needle pushing through his flesh and looks away. She's not squeamish – how could she be? - but there's something about poking needles into people that she's always found unsettling.

“He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s pretty dehydrated, but he should come around.” The woman says, not looking up from her work. “He’ll need to sleep, take it easy while his body recovers.”

“But he’ll be okay?” 

"He'll recover. Just give him some time." She pushes back her chair, finished cleaning up the last of Bass's wounds. "If there's nothing else for me to do here, I'd really like to get to bed."

"You've been here all night?"

"There was a lot to do. You should keep him company, I gave him some medicine to put him to sleep for a while but he should be up again soon. Make him drink some water. He won't want to, and he might be a little delirious, but it'll help him get better. He's been sweating pretty heavily and I don't want to see that dehydration get any worse."

"Thank you," Charlie says. Words can't express how grateful she is to this miracle worker, but a simple 'thank you' will have to suffice. "Go, sleep. I'll send someone if anything bad happens."

"You're welcome," the woman strains to smile, her lips a thin, slightly upturned line. "I'll do whatever I can."

"You've done enough for now."

When the doctor is gone, Charlie realises that she never caught the woman's name. She sits down in the empty chair next to the cot, pulling a thin knit blanket up over Bass's scarred and wounded chest. Her fingers linger, tracing over a scar near his heart that she remembered touching before. When he was shirtless for a very different reason.

Alone, she doesn't try to stifle them when a tear rolls down her cheek. She cries in silence, fear and relief and anger mingling with an overwhelming sadness that doesn't make any sense. What reason does she have to be sad? He's going to be okay, the doctor said so. She hadn't gotten him killed after all. It was all going to be fine, especially once she'd dealt with whoever had put him in this condition. She lowers her head to his chest, his heart beating steadily under her ear, comforting in its rhythm.

"I'm sorry, Bass," she whispers. He's asleep - she knows he can't hear her, but there are some things she can't say to him when he's conscious. Not yet. "I should have been there. I was scared and I pushed you away after... It's not that I didn't like it. I think it was obvious that I liked it, and that you did to. And it's not that I don't like you. I do. Kind of. Sometimes. But it's complicated and I know that we can't be together, not like a normal couple. Not that I even want that, or that you do either. I mean, I don't know what you want. You could want that." She feels so dumb, babbling about a relationship as his chest rises and falls under her ear. She can feel her tears dampening the patch of chest under her head. 

"I just want you to wake up, okay. That'd be enough, I promise. Just... wake up." She lifts her head to press a chaste kiss to his forehead, wiping the tears from her cheeks. It feels wrong, and she regrets it almost instantly. Forehead kisses aren't the kind she and Bass share. Shared?

"I'll be right back, okay?" Of course it's okay, she berates herself. He won't even notice, Charlie. He's medicated, he'll still be asleep when you get back.

Still, she walks so fast she's nearly running to his tent. She flips open the doorflap and steps inside, looking around the room. It's smaller than hers or Miles' and as she looks around it strikes her that she's never been inside Bass's tent. Half the room is still filled with food, a holdover from its' former life as a storage tent before it was assigned to Bass. What a fall he's taken, she thinks, from living in the lap of luxury in Independance Hall to a produce tent in southern Kansas. She's not sure how he got assigned here or why he'd agreed to sleep in a room that reeked of garlic. She'll have to find somewhere else for him to sleep once he's able to leave Miles' tent. She lurches forward when her eyes fall on Bass's canvas bag, the one she'd rummaged through before. Hefting the heavy bag over her shoulder she turns to return to his side.

"Charlie!" She knows who is calling her without turning to see. There's only one person in this camp who actually calls her by her first name.

"I need to get back Miles, is it urgent?" she says, still walking hurriedly towards his tent.

"We need to talk. Before Bass wakes up. It's important." He sounds nervous. Has she ever heard Miles sound nervous before? She wouldn't have thought that was an emotion in his repetoire.

"You have five minutes. Talk."

"In private. Please."

"Fine. In here," she steers him towards her own tent, empty in her absence. "What's going on?"

"Tell me what's going on between you and him."

"Jesus, Miles. I said I didn't want to talk about that. Mind your own damn business. Is this why you wanted to talk to me, because I don't have time for this."

"Wait. I need to know."

"Why? How is what I do or don't do any concern of yours?"

"I'm supposed to protect you, Charlie. And you're not making it easy for me."

"I am an adult. I don't need your protection, how many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Until it's true! You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me, you'd still be living on a farm with your dad and your brother and your life would be easy and simple if it wasn't for me. So it's my job to keep any more bad shit from happening to you."

"I get that you think I'm this burden that you have to shoulder out of some dumb sense of guilt, but I'm not. This has nothing to do with you, so stay out of it."

"I was trying to protect you..." He mumbles.

Charlie feels the blood drain from her face as she turns to face Miles, her expression hardened. "What did you do?" she says quietly through gritted teeth.

"I didn't mean -"

"What did you do?" she says, volume growing.

"I thought it was for the best. I wouldn’t have done it if I thought he'd get hurt."

"What did you do, Miles?" she shouts, grabbing him by the arm, her fingers digging into his flesh until her fingertips turn white.

"I told him to leave. I saw the way he was looking at you and I said it was for the best for everyone if he just left."

"You - why - that's why you didn't want to look for him?"

"I'm sorry, Charlie. I thought..."

"I don't have time for this. Your five minutes are up." Her face is stone, her back straight as she adjusts the bag full of books on her shoulder and sweeps out of the tent. Miles doesn't try to follow. 

She'd known things were bad between Miles and Bass, but not that bad. Not banishment bad. That's what Miles had done - banished him. Because of her. Because of his misplaced sense of duty. That fucking idiot.

She holds in her scream of frustration until she reaches Miles' tent, when she can't hold it in any longer. She grabs a clean t-shirt that she crumples into a ball and shouts into until just a bit of her rage has subsided. She wants to run him through with his own damn sword, but that wouldn't do anyone any good. She throws the t-shirt onto the fire - she might not be able to strangle him, but she can burn some of his clothes. That'll help.

"Charlie?" A woman's questioning voice accosts her from the doorway and when she looks up Eliza is staring back at her, eyebrows raised. "What the hell happened to you?"

Charlie remembers that she's still dressed in her bloody clothes from the previous day and rips her shirt off over her head, stepping out of her jeans and tossing both garments into the fire along with Miles' clothes. She suddenly can't bear the feeling of their stiffness against her body, but with them gone the tears return in earnest.

Eliza rushes to her, confused but attentive, draping a blanket over Charlie's shoulders and ushering her into the chair next to Bass.

"Are you okay?" she asks, then shakes her head in admonishment. "What the hell am I thinking, obviously you aren't okay. Talk to me."

But Charlie barely knows this girl. How can she open up to her when every person she's let close has died? Talking to her is practically the same as serving her up to the grim reaper on a silver platter. So Charlie remains silent, pulling her legs up under the blanket and wiping at her teary face periodically. 

"You found him," Eliza says, sinking down onto the end of the cot next to Bass's feet. "The man you were looking for." She pauses and even though she doesn't look up from her lap, Charlie can feel Eliza's eyes on her.

"Is there anyone I can get for you? My dad? Miles?"

"No!"

"Hey, relax. I don't need to get anyone. But at least let me grab you some new clothes, okay?"

Charlie nods, shivering under the thin blanket. The fire behind her should be enough to keep her warm, but she's freezing anyway.

"Don't move. I'll be right back."

The minute she's out of the tent, Charlie gets up to fetch the discarded book bag, bringing it back to rest on the ground next to the bed. She pulls out the first book her hand meets and begins to read without even glancing at the cover.

Five pages in, she groans loudly. “This is the dullest book I’ve ever read. And I was taught by Aaron, possibly the least interesting teacher alive, for most of my childhood. He had a thing for boring books about science.” She’d tried reading it once before, though she’d only gotten a few pages deep that time before being bored to tears by the talk of biotechnology and other things that didn’t make any sense in her world. But of course when she’d reached into the bag she’d picked up the book she’d seen Bass reading more times than Charlie could count over the weeks it had taken to travel from Willoughby. Of fucking course.

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll keep reading, but it better pick up soon. I was promised dinosaurs, damn it.” She begins to read, aloud this time, picking up at the beginning of the prologue, the science talk seeming to abate for the time being. She quickly becomes engrossed in the words, tucked into a tight, warm cocoon in the stiff chair at Bass’s beside she doesn’t even notice when Eliza comes in, bringing a pair of neatly folded jeans and a tank top to replace the ones she’d burned and setting them down on the folding table next to the supplies left behind by the doctor.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asks after about an hour of reading, her voice growing hoarse and her throat sore. She could use a giant cup of water just about now, but the water in the room is for Bass, once he wakes up. She can’t drink that water – it wouldn’t feel right. “I’m just reading to myself, aren’t I? This is stupid and my throat hurts and you’re not even awake. Also this book is dumb and I just want to get to the part when the dinosaurs kill everybody already.”

“You’re almost there.”

Charlie’s heart leaps as she looks up from her book, eyelashes slightly damp again and she finds herself struck utterly speechless as those blue eyes focus in on her and all she can think is he’s awake over and over again.

“Another chapter or so and people’ll be ripped apart all over the place,” Bass says, lips forming a pained half-smile. She wants to press her own lips against it, all over him, but she can’t do that. It wouldn’t be appropriate. Instead she rushes out of her chair to bring him some water, the directions given by the doctor coming back to her. As she drops the blanket from around her she hears a quick intake of breath and scrambles to pull the blanket back over her exposed body.

“Don’t cover up on my account,” Bass says before being interrupted by a fit of violent coughs. Charlie returns to his side, holding a flask of water near his face as she waits for the coughing to subside.

“Back on the bottle already?” He chokes out as the coughing ceases, reaching for the flask.

“Shut up and drink.” Charlie says, her eyes betraying a softness that her tone lacks.

“Yes, Nurse Ratched,” he says, dipping his head back slightly to drink. “This isn’t the whiskey I ordered.”

“No, it’s water. You’re that desperate to get drunk already?”

“It’d take the edge off.” He admits, shrugging his shoulders and grimacing when he realises how painful that action is.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

He takes another long drink, guzzling down the water like it’s the ether of the gods. “You’re being nice to me.”

“You almost died. Again. I’m relieved, that’s all.”

“You were reading to me. You were reading my favourite book to me, Charlie.”

“Shut up,” she blushes. “I liked you better when you were asleep.”

He grins up at her from the cot, then closes his eyes obediently. She takes the flask and takes a swig from it, then sets it on the ground between the cot and the chair. Everything she needs right now is within arm’s reach, she thinks as she settles back into her chair and picks up the book, and it’s the first time she’s truly felt content – happy, even – in days.


End file.
